Nanoscale Materials for Arsenic Removal From Water

Arsenic removal using the adsorption technique (particularly the use of high surface, active nanoparticles) has been an active research area in the past decade. A wide variety of nanoparticles, including zero valent iron, iron oxide, aluminium oxide, titanium oxide, and mixed metal oxides, has been investigated by numerous researchers. However, bare nano-absorbents are limited in their application to remove arsenic ions from real contaminated water due to their lower capacity for recovery and recycling. Magnetic nanomaterials and nanoparticle-loaded polymeric composites have been investigated to overcome those drawbacks, and they exhibit good arsenic adsorption capacity with easy separation from water after the adsorption step. In the present chapter, we give a critical overview of available literature dealing with the application of various nanomaterials such as single metallic nanoparticles, mixed metal oxide/hydroxide-based nanoparticles, magnetic nanoparticles, composite nanoparticles, photocatalytic nanoparticles, and nanoparticles in a composite membrane to remove arsenic from synthetic and real contaminated water.