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Light Driven Nanomaterials for Removal of Agricultural Toxins

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Nanoscience in Food and Agriculture 3

Part of the book series: Sustainable Agriculture Reviews ((SARV,volume 23))

Abstract

Globalization has catalyzed the agricultural sector for prompting the trade across the globe with derived benefits to the growth of the nation. Many nations depend highly on the agricultural industry both for earning foreign exchange and fullfilling local needs. In the last decades the industry has emerged owing to the superior technology development and its demand in global market. As a consequence industry has contributed to the diffusion of new xenobiotics, such as pesticides, in to the aquatic environment. Pesticides are used for reducing crop infection and increasing crop yield. The usage pesticides and fungicides can rarely be stopped because of the complexity of the pests. Thus removal of xenobiotics from the aquatic environment is mandatory, since they contribute for wide range of detrimental effects to flora, fauna and well beings. Heterogeneous photocatalysis, a subset of advanced oxidation processes, is one of the means to clean waters.

Here we review the use light driven nanomaterials for remediation of agricultural pollutants. Light driven nanomaterials are very effective and convert organic pesticides into nontoxic small molecule such as carbon dioxide and water. Titanium dioxide and modified titanium dioxide photocatalysts show a good performance in eliminating the pesticides such as 2,4-dichlorophenol and 2-chlorophenol. Ag-modified titania removes 60 % of 2,4-dichlorophenol from aqueous solutions with initial concentration of 20 mg/l. The modification of the titanium dioxide increases the removal rate by 4.3 times compared to the initial titanium dioxide. Similarly, the titanium dioxide nanotubes (TNT) also exhibit an excellent performance in degrading 2-chlorophenol in the presence of visible light source.

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Acknowledgement

The authors are grateful to University of Malaya Research Grant (RG167/12SUS & RP019B-13AET), University of Malaya Postgraduate Research Grant (PG022-2013A & PV106/2012A) and the Ministry of Education Malaysia Fundamental Research Grant (FP051-2013B).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Environmental Engineering Laboratory, Department of Civil Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University of Malaya, 50603, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

    Kah Hon Leong, Saravanan Pichiah & Shaliza Ibrahim

  2. Faculty of Engineering and Green Technology, Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman, Jalan Universiti, Bandar Barat, 31900, Kampar, Perak, Malaysia

    Kah Hon Leong & Lan Ching Sim

  3. Department of Environmental Science and Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology (ISM) Dhanbad, Dhanbad, 826004, Jharkhand, India

    Saravanan Pichiah

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  1. Kah Hon Leong
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  2. Lan Ching Sim
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Correspondence to Saravanan Pichiah .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. SBST, VIT University, Vellore,SMV, 115, Vellore Institute of Technology SBST, VIT University, Vellore,SMV, 115, Vellore, India

    Shivendu Ranjan

  2. School of Bio Sciences and Technology, VIT University School of Bio Sciences and Technology, Vellore, Tamil Nadu, India

    Nandita Dasgupta

  3. UMR1347 Agroécologie, INRA , Aix en Provence, France

    Eric Lichtfouse

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Leong, K.H., Sim, L.C., Pichiah, S., Ibrahim, S. (2016). Light Driven Nanomaterials for Removal of Agricultural Toxins. In: Ranjan, S., Dasgupta, N., Lichtfouse, E. (eds) Nanoscience in Food and Agriculture 3. Sustainable Agriculture Reviews, vol 23. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-48009-1_9

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