Nanoremediation: A New and Emerging Technology for the Removal of Toxic Contaminant from Environment

Nanotechnology is an emerging branch of science and has enormous applications in different fields. Nanotechnology is also used as an environmental technology to protect the environment through pollution prevention and treatment, and cleanup of long-term problems such as hazardous waste sites. Environmental cleanup includes removal of heavy metals and other toxic contaminants from the environment and the process is called remediation. Remediation of toxic contaminants can be achieved by different traditional methods like physical, chemical, and biological remediations including microbial and phytoremediation. Apart from the usefulness of these traditional methods for environmental remediation, there is no single method that can achieve complete remediation. Hence, there is a need to develop some nanotechnology-based alternative methods for complete remediation of contaminants from the environment. Nanotechnology has the potential to provide some beneficial replacements for current practices of site remediation. However, its potential risks are poorly understood and might lead to unintended consequences. Therefore, this chapter is mainly focused on different traditional methods for remediation of contaminants from the environment and their limitations, and on nanoremediation as an alternative approach for cleaning the polluted environment. © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.