This Special Issue of Water Research brings together 33 papers on progress towards the responsible application of nanotechnology for water treatment. The papers address the transport of nanomaterials in porous media, nanoparticle aggregation, and chemical transformation of nanomaterials during water and wastewater treatment.
Nanomaterials show great potential for enabling and improving technologies for water treatment. The novel properties of these materials can be exploited to yield better adsorbents, reactive or photocatalytic materials, and improved membranes.
However, as increasing quantities of nanomaterials are produced and used in consumer products, it also becomes increasingly likely that these materials will find their way into potable water resources.
While the risks associated with nanomaterials remain largely unknown, proactive measures are being taken to understand the ability of current treatment technologies to remove engineered nanomaterials. This requires an improved understanding of the processes that govern nanomaterial transport in natural and engineered systems.
The papers in this Special Issue of Water Research address the transport of nanomaterials in porous media, nanoparticle aggregation, and chemical transformation of nanomaterials during water and wastewater treatment.
Assessment of potential nanomaterial risk is the topic of several papers that consider nanomaterial toxicity. These considerations of nanomaterial applications, assessment of risk, and risk management span the full breadth of environmental nanotechnology. They illustrate that the development of new technologies and a precautionary, proactive examination of the possible impacts of these technologies are not activities in opposition.
Technological innovation will lead to an ever-expanding set of new solutions for addressing challenges to water resources, sometimes creating new challenges of their own. On the horizon are developments including metamaterials, synthetic biology, artificial photosynthesis, and biofuels that will require an examination of their sustainability.
The current efforts of the environmental engineering community to responsibly apply nanomaterials to create new technologies, while being vigilant of their potential impacts, should serve as a template for a proactive approach to evaluating emerging technologies, and putting them on a path towards sustainability.
