How Nanotechnology can be used to lower pollution

A big issue that faces our planet is pollution. Here are some of the clever solutions that nanotechnology offers or could offer in the future to help reduce pollution levels.

Nano Catalysts

Catalysts work by speeding up chemical reactions that transform harmful vapors from cars and industrial plants into harmless gases. All current Catalysts contain a nanofiber catalyst made of manganese oxide that removes volatile organic compounds from industrial smokestacks.

The use of Nano catalysts are crucial for reducing the amount of harmful gases in the air and the amount of carbon dioxide going into our atmosphere and contributing to climate change.

Nano wires to clean up oil spills

There are methods to clean up oil spills already, but there hasn’t been a method of cleaning up oil spills whilst recovering the oil lost. With Nano wires made of Potassium Manganese Oxide can clean up oil whilst making oil recovery possible. Nanowires are used to form a mesh which can absorb up to twenty times its weight in hydrophobic liquids while rejecting water with its water repellent coating.

This transforms the way oil spills and disasters can be cleaned up, meaning that even if huge amounts of oil is lost, it can be recovered.

Accelerating Digestion

Nanomaterials can be used to digest organic waste at a faster rate, helping to avoid more land and water pollution. With the acceleration of digestion, there is more efficiency in terms of the duration and enhanced production of the biogas.

Recent research showed that adding metal oxide nanoparticles to a food waste digester doubled the amount of biogas fuel produced compared to the digester without it.

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