Cellulose-based nanomaterials for water and wastewater treatments: A review

Several activities like agricultural, household, and industrial are contaminating freshwater available on the planet. The typical contaminants like dyes and heavy metals have been creating risk to aquatic bodies and human health. Serious treats of both heavy metals and dyes are indicating the necessity of an efficient treatment for industrial wastewater. Different process like adsorption, absorption, flocculation, and filtration are low cost and efficient method used for removal of pollutants from wastewater. Recently, the use of naturally obtained materials for above mentioned methods has gained tremendous attention. One of the promising materials is cellulose polymer which has been extensively studied for chemical and mechanical modification to get cellulose based nanomaterials due to its various properties, availability in nature, biodegradability and non-toxicity. The cellulose based nanomaterials have excellent capabilities to purify water and they may effectively be used for wastewater purification treatments. This review focuses on the different synthesis techniques for various cellulose based nanomaterials such as cellulose nanofibers, cellulose nanocrystal and bacterial cellulose. This paper is also reviews the most recent nanocellulose processing methods and techniques used for the logical alteration of the chemical surface. Furthermore, it also evaluates the use of cellulose nanomaterials to extract contaminants such as organic compounds, heavy metals and pharmaceutical residues from wastewater effluent.