Nano-biomaterials in-focus as sensing/detection cues for environmental pollutants

Advanced protein nanobiosensors to in-situ detect hazardous material in the environment

Determining hazardous substances in the environment is vital to maintaining the safety and health of all components of society, including the ecosystem and humans. Recently, protein-based nanobiosensors have emerged as effective tools for monitoring potentially hazardous substances in situ. Nanobiosensor detection mode is a combination of particular plasmonic nanomaterials (e.g., nanoparticles, nanotubes, quantum dots, etc.), and specific bioreceptors (e.g., aptamers, antibodies, DNA, etc.), which has the benefits of high selectivity, sensitivity, and compatibility with biological systems. The role of these nanobiosensors in identifying dangerous substances (e.g., heavy metals, organic pollutants, pathogens, toxins, etc.) is discussed along with different detection mechanisms and various transduction methods (e.g., electrical, optical, mechanical, electrochemical, etc.). In addition, topics discussed include the design and construction of these sensors, the selection of proteins, the integration of nanoparticles, and their development processes. A discussion of the challenges and prospects of this technology is also included. As a result, protein nanobiosensors are introduced as a powerful tool for monitoring and improving environmental quality and community safety.

Optimization of Novel 2D Material Based SPR Biosensor Using Machine Learning

Biosensors are needed for today's health monitoring system for detecting different biomolecules. Graphene is a monolayer material that can be utilized to sense biomolecules and design biosensors. We have proposed a Graphene-Gold-Silver hybrid structure design based on Zinc Oxide which gives sensitive performance to detect hemoglobin biomolecules. The advanced biosensor designed based on this hybrid structure shows the highest sensitivity of 1000 nm/RIU which is far better concerning similar structure previously analyzed. The graphene-gold-silver hybrid structure is presented for its possible reflectance results and electric field results. The E-field results match well with the reflectance results given by the sensitive hybrid structure. The sensing biomolecules are presented above the structure where a combination of graphene-gold-silver hybrid structure improves the sensitivity to a great extent. The optimized parameters are obtained by applying variations in the physical parameters of the design. The machine learning algorithm employed for reflectance prediction shows a high prediction accuracy and can be utilized for simulation resource reduction. The proposed biosensor can be used in real-time hemoglobin monitoring.

Present status of insecticide impacts and eco-friendly approaches for remediation-a review

Insecticides are indispensable for modern agriculture to ensuring crop protection and optimal yields. However, their excessive use raises concerns regarding their adverse effects on agriculture and the environment. This study examines the impacts of insecticides on agriculture and proposes remediation strategies. Excessive insecticide application can lead to the development of resistance in target insects, necessitating higher concentrations or stronger chemicals, resulting in increased production costs and disruption of natural pest control mechanisms. In addition, non-target organisms, such as beneficial insects and aquatic life, suffer from the unintended consequences of insecticide use, leading to ecosystem imbalances and potential food chain contamination. To address these issues, integrated pest management (IPM) techniques that combine judicious insecticide use with biological control and cultural practices can reduce reliance on chemicals. Developing and implementing selective insecticides with reduced environmental persistence is crucial. Promoting farmer awareness of responsible insecticide use, offering training and resources, and adopting precision farming technologies can minimize overall insecticide usage.

In-field deployable and facile nanosensor for the detection of pesticides residues

Local air and water should be first priority to understand the environment of any area. Different categories of contaminants behave like bottleneck situation in collection and analysis of data about abiotic factors for the understanding and resolving the environmental issues. In digital age the emerging nano technology enroll its role to meet the needs of hour. Due to increase in pesticides residues, the global health threats are on bloom because it inhibits the functionality of acetylcholinesterase (AChE) enzyme. Smart nanotechnology based system can tackle this issue and sense the pesticides residues in environment and vegetables as well. Here Au@ZnWO₄ composite is reported, for accurate detection of pesticides residues in biological food and environmental samples. The fabricated unique nanocomposite was characterized by SEM, FTIR, XRD and EDX. The characterized material used for the electrochemical detection of organophosphate pesticide (chlorpyrifos), with 1 pM LoD at a signal to noise ratio of 3. The main concern of study is to help out in disease prevention, food safety and ecosystem protection.

Carbon-based nanocomposite materials with multifunctional attributes for environmental remediation of emerging pollutants

Carbon-based materials are among the most biosynthesized nanocomposites with excellent tunability and multifunctionality features, that other materials fail to demonstrate. Naturally occurring materials, such as alginate (Alg), can be combined and modified by linking the active moieties of various carbon-based materials of interest, such as graphene oxide (GO), carbon nanotubes (CNTs), and mesoporous silica nanocomposite (MSN), among others. Thus, several types of robust nanocomposites have been fabricated and deployed for environmental remediation of emerging pollutants, such as pharmaceutical compounds, toxic dyes, and other environmentally hazardous contaminants of emerging concern. Considering the above critiques and added features of carbon-based nanocomposites, herein, an effort has been made to spotlight the synergies of GO, CNTs, and MSN with Alg and their role in mitigating emerging pollutants. From the information presented in this work, it can be concluded that Alg is a material that has excellent potential. However, its use still requires further tests in different areas and other materials to carry out a holistic investigation that exploits its versatility for environmental remediation purposes.

Nano-remediation technologies for the sustainable mitigation of persistent organic pollutants

The absence of novel and efficient methods for the elimination of persistent organic pollutants (POPs) from the environment is a serious concern in the society. The pollutants release into the atmosphere by means of industrialization and urbanization is a massive global hazard. Although, the eco-toxicity associated with nanotechnology is still being debated, nano-remediation is a potentially developing tool for dealing with contamination of the environment, particularly POPs. Nano-remediation is a novel strategy to the safe and long-term removal of POPs. This detailed review article presents an important perspective on latest innovations and future views of nano-remediation methods used for environmental decontamination, like nano-photocatalysis and nanosensing. Different kinds of nanomaterials including nanoscale zero-valent iron (nZVI), carbon nanotubes (CNTs), magnetic and metallic nanoparticles, silica (SiO₂) nanoparticles, graphene oxide, covalent organic frameworks (COFs), and metal organic frameworks (MOFs) have been summarized for the mitigation of POPs. Furthermore, the long-term viability of nano-remediation strategies for dealing with legacy contamination was considered, with a particular emphasis on environmental and health implications. The assessment goes on to discuss the environmental consequences of nanotechnology and offers consensual recommendations on how to employ nanotechnology for a greater present and a more prosperous future.

Plant-mediated gold and silver nanoparticles as detectors of heavy metal contamination

Heavy metals are dumped into the environment as a result of human activities, posing a serious threat to ecology and human health. Surface water, potable drinking water, potable groundwater, and majority of wastewater include their traces, due to which, their detection by nanoparticles has received a lot of attention in recent years. Although microorganisms are utilised for green nanoparticle production, plant materials have recently been explored because they are more environmentally friendly, easier to scale up, and require fewer specific growth conditions. The production and attributes of nanoparticles synthesized by plant mediation could be enhanced through design of experiments approach, extending their feasibility in the detection of heavy metals in polluted environmental samples. A concise review on green synthesis of silver and gold nanoparticles utilizing plant phytochemicals, its mechanism of synthesis along with significance of design of experiments for enhancement, and their use as heavy metal contamination detectors is presented in the current study.

Occurrence, toxic effects, and mitigation of pesticides as emerging environmental pollutants using robust nanomaterials - A review

Increasing demand of food and agriculture is leading us towards the increasing use and introduction of pesticides to the environment. The upright increase of pesticides in water and associated adverse effects have become a great point of concern to develop proficient methods for their mitigation from water. Various different methods have been traditionally employed for this purpose. Recently, nanotechnology has turned out to be the field of prodigious interest for this purpose, and various specific methods were developed and employed to remove pesticides from water. In this study, nanotechnological methods such as adsorption and degradation have been thoroughly discussed along with their applications and limitations where different types of nanoparticles, nanocomposites, nanotubes, and nanomembranes have played a vital role. However, in this study the most commonly adopted method of adsorption is considered to be the better technique due to its low cost, efficiency, and ease of operation. The adsorption kinetic models were described to explain the efficiency of the nano-adrsorbants in order to evaluate the mass transfer processes. However, various degradation methodologies including photocatalysis and catalytic reduction have also been elaborated. Numerous robust metal, metal oxide and functionalized magnetic nanomaterials have been emphasized, categorized, and compared for the removal of pesticides from water. Additionally, current challenges faced by researchers and future directions have also been provided.

Alginate-based nano-adsorbent materials - Bioinspired solution to mitigate hazardous environmental pollutants

Population growth and industrialization is associated with the elevation of hazardous pollutants, including heavy metals, biomedical wastes, personal-care products, endocrine-disrupters, pharmaceutically active compounds, and colorants in the environment. The scientific focus has been devoted to developing novel adsorbents to mitigate hazardous pollutants by constructing hybrids of different polymers and nano-structured materials for improved workability and physicochemical attributes. Recently, much attention has been devoted to nanomaterials in environmental remediation, owning to their exceptional characteristics including novel electrical/chemical features, quantum size effects, tunable functionalization, high scalability, and surface-area-to-volume ratio. Target-specific designing of nanocomposites impart high functionality. The cost-effective and eco-friendly synthesis of bioadsorbent materials is increasing for the removal of hazardous pollutants. Due to biocompatible, biodegradable, and eco-friendly nature, sodium alginate has been widely reported for the preparation of bioadsorbent materials to remove different inorganic/organic pollutants. In this review, the potentialities of alginate-based nanocomposites have been described for environmental remediation purposes. Different nanomaterials, including silica, metallic oxide, graphene oxide, hybrid inorganic-organic, non-magnetic-magnetic, carbon nanorods, nanotubes, polymeric nanocarriers, and several other materials have been described in combination with alginate biopolymer for environmental remediation.

Graphene Based Nanohybrid Aptasensors in Environmental Monitoring: Concepts, Design and Future Outlook

In view of ever-increasing environmental pollution, there is an immediate requirement to promote cheap, multiplexed, sensitive and fast biosensing systems to monitor these pollutants or contaminants. Aptamers have shown numerous advantages in being used as molecular recognition elements in various biosensing devices. Graphene and graphene-based materials/nanohybrids combined with several detection methods exhibit great potential owing to their exceptional optical, electronic and physicochemical properties which can be employed extensively to monitor environmental contaminants. For environmental monitoring applications, aptamers have been successfully combined with graphene-based nanohybrids to produce a wide range of innovative methodologies. Aptamers are immobilized at the surface of graphene based nanohybrids via covalent and non-covalent strategies. This review highlights the design, working principle, recent developmental advances and applications of graphene based nanohybrid aptasensors (GNH-Apts) (since January 2014 to September 2021) with a special emphasis on two major signal-transduction methods, i.e., optical and electrochemical for the monitoring of pesticides, heavy metals, bacteria, antibiotics, and organic compounds from different environmental samples (e.g., water, soil and related). Lastly, the challenges confronted by scientists and the possible future outlook have also been addressed. It is expected that high-performance graphene-based nanohybrid aptasensors would find broad applications in the field of environmental monitoring.

Covalent organic frameworks-based smart materials for mitigation of pharmaceutical pollutants from aqueous solution

Covalent organic frameworks (COFs) are an emergent group of crystalline porous materials that have gained incredible interest in recent years. With foreseeable controllable functionalities and structural configurations, the constructions and catalytic properties of these organic polymeric materials can be controlled to fabricate targeted materials. The specified monomer linkers and pre-designed architecture of COFs facilitate the post-synthetic modifications for introducing novel functions and useful properties. By virtue of inherent porosity, robust framework, well-ordered geometry, functionality, higher stability, and amenability to functionalization, COFs and COFs-based composites are regarded as prospective nanomaterials for environmental clean-up and remediation. This report spotlights the state-of-the-art advances and progress in COFs-based materials to efficiently mitigate pharmaceutical-based environmental pollutants from aqueous solutions. Synthesis approaches, structure, functionalization, and sustainability aspects of COFs are discussed. Moreover, the adsorptive and photocatalytic potential of COFs and their derived nanocomposites for removal and degradation of pharmaceuticals are thoroughly vetted. In addition to deciphering adsorption mechanism/isotherms, the stability, regeneratability and reproducibility are also delineated. Lastly, the outcomes are summed up, and new directions are proposed to widen the promise of COF-based smart materials in diverse fields.

Nanoadsorbents in focus for the remediation of environmentally-related contaminants with rising toxicity concerns

Modern lifestyle demands high-end commodities, for instance, cosmetics, detergents, shampoos, household cleaning, sanitary items, medicines, and so forth. In recent years, these products' consumption has increased considerably, being antibiotics and some other pharmaceutical and personal care products (PPCPs). Several antibiotics and PPCPs represent a wide range of emerging contaminants with a straight ingress into aquatic systems, given their high persistence in seawater, effluent treatment plants, and even drinking water. Under these considerations, the necessity of developing new and affordable technologies for the treatment and sustainable mitigation of pollutants is highly requisite for a safer and cleaner environment. One possible mitigation solution is an effective deployment of nanotechnological cues as promising matrices that can contribute by attending issues and improving the current strategies to detect, prevent, and mitigate hazardous pollutants in water. Focused on nanoparticles' distinctive physical and chemical properties, such as high surface area, small size, and shape, metallic nanoparticles (MNPs) have been investigated for water remediation. MNPs gained increasing interest among research groups due to their superior efficiency, stability, and high catalyst activity compared with conventional systems. This review summarizes the occurrence of antibiotics and PPCPs and the application of MNPs as pollutant mitigators in the aquatic environment. The work also focuses on transportation fate, toxicity, and current regulations for environmental safety.

Nano and micro architectured cues as smart materials to mitigate recalcitrant pharmaceutical pollutants from wastewater

Pharmaceuticals have been recognized for saving billions of lives, but they also appear as a novel group of environmental pollutants. The presence of pharmaceutically active residues in seawater, surface water, wastewater treatment plants, sludges, and soils has been widely reported. Their persistence in the environment for extended durations exerts various adverse consequences, such as gene toxicity, hormonal interference, antibiotic resistance, sex organs imposition, and many others. Various methodologies have been envisioned for their removal from the aqueous media. Different processes have been restricted due to high cost, inefficient removal, generation of toxic materials, and high capital requirement. The employment of nanostructured materials to mitigate pharmaceutical contaminants has been increasing during the last decades. The adsorptive nanomaterials have a high surface area, low cost, eco-friendliness, and high affinity for inorganic and organic molecules. In this review, we have documented the rising concerns of environmental pharmaceutical contamination and their remediation by applications of nanomaterials. Nanomaterials could be a robust candidate for the removal of an array of environmental contaminants in water.

Deployment of metal-organic frameworks as robust materials for sustainable catalysis and remediation of pollutants in environmental settings

From metal-organic chemistry, metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) are of supreme interest for catalysis and environmental settings. Owing to anthropogenic sources and booming industrial practices, the most challenging issue is increased water pollution and environmental insecurity. For instance, several types of synthetic dyes are toxic up to a certain extent, as emerging organic contaminants (EOCs) pose adverse environmental and potential health consequences. A gradual increase in the contamination sources and unpredictable environmental changes in terms of anthropogenic pollution severely affect both water availability and distribution. Therefore, the treatment of dyes containing wastewater matrices for water resource generation is one of the most important tasks, which must be addressed effectively. With structural tunability, MOFs have been appearing as a robust tool for remediating toxic pollutants from wastewater matrices. Moreover, the promising functionality, structural tunability, robust catalytic attributes, compatibility, large surface area, stability in water, and ease in surface functionalization make MOFs one of the considerable materials of interest. This review work spotlights the present-day progress related to MOFs and their catalytic and adsorptive chemistry for a sustainable environment. Following a brief introduction, the characteristic rendering MOFs, as adsorbents, are given with prominent examples. Next, several synthesis routes as a roadmap to engineer MOFs are discussed. From the applied perspective, the adsorptive and catalytic potentialities of MOFs as given by addressing sustainable mitigation of toxic dyes. The last section of the work illustrates key challenging issues and future directions by considering the suiting importance of MOFs.

Trends in predictive biodegradation for sustainable mitigation of environmental pollutants: Recent progress and future outlook

The feasibility of in-silico techniques, together with the computational framework, has been applied to predictive bioremediation aiming to clean-up contaminants, toxicity evaluation, and possibilities for the degradation of complex recalcitrant compounds. Emerging contaminants from different industries have posed a significant hazard to the environment and public health. Given current bioremediation strategies, it is often a failure or inadequate for sustainable mitigation of hazardous pollutants. However, clear-cut vital information about biodegradation is quite incomplete from a conventional remediation techniques perspective. Lacking complete information on bio-transformed compounds leads to seeking alternative methods. Only scarce information about the transformed products and toxicity profile is available in the published literature. To fulfill this literature gap, various computational or in-silico technologies have emerged as alternating techniques, which are being recognized as in-silico approaches for bioremediation. Molecular docking, molecular dynamics simulation, and biodegradation pathways predictions are the vital part of predictive biodegradation, including the Quantitative Structure-Activity Relationship (QSAR), Quantitative structure-biodegradation relationship (QSBR) model system. Furthermore, machine learning (ML), artificial neural network (ANN), genetic algorithm (GA) based programs offer simultaneous biodegradation prediction along with toxicity and environmental fate prediction. Herein, we spotlight the feasibility of in-silico remediation approaches for various persistent, recalcitrant contaminants while traditional bioremediation fails to mitigate such pollutants. Such could be addressed by exploiting described model systems and algorithm-based programs. Furthermore, recent advances in QSAR modeling, algorithm, and dedicated biodegradation prediction system have been summarized with unique attributes.