Nanotechnology: Future of Environmental Air Pollution Control

Abstract

Environmental contamination is one of the important issues that the world is confronting today, and it is expanding with each passing year and leading to grave and harmful effect to the earth. At present, the air contains various pollutants like CO, chlorofluorocarbons, volatile organic compounds, hydrocarbons, and nitrogen oxides. Water and soil are also contaminated with organic and inorganic compounds, the major sources for water and soil contamination are sewage water, industrial effluents, random use of pesticides, fertilizers, and oil spills. In parallel, the rapid growth of nanotechnology has gained a great deal of interest in the applications of nanomaterials potential in improved systems for monitoring and cleanup including all the three phases of environment . It can develop the pollutants sensing and detection and help in the improvement of novel remediation technologies. Nanomaterials are excellent adsorbents, catalysts and sensors due to their large specific surface areas and high reactivates. This review firstly sheds the light on the definition of nanoparticles, and the nanotechnology concept, the fundamental properties, classification, and fields of nanotechnology applications. Then it focuses broadly on the application of nanotechnology in environmental fields, in particular, its application in air pollution monitoring and remediation and its future trend in this field.