New 2D-carbon structures decorated with metal oxides for water decontamination and their impact assessment on plants

A very important concern of The Times is represented by climate change, environmental pollution, and their associated risks. In the last few decades, a considerable number of chemicals (pharmaceuticals, pesticides, and their metabolites) used in daily life and various applications have been discharged into the environment. These compounds are considered emerging pollutants because remain and migrate in the environment causing adverse environmental and/or human health effects. Also, due to their persistence, toxicity, bioaccumulation tendency, the potential for long-distance migration, and increasing concentration, they represent a wide concern in the research. Considering all this worrying information, water resources and their low quality may be compensated by effective wastewater treatment to reuse water. Therefore, one of the important challenges today is to develop green and environmentally friendly technologies for wastewater treatment.

 This project aims to create low-cost, environmentally friendly 2D carbon structures, decorated with metal oxides, for the adsorptive removal of drugs and pesticides from contaminated water, and to assess their impact on plants. The novelty and originality of the project are given by (i) the preparation and characterization of new tertiary composites made from combinations of graphene and metal oxides, using extracts from fruit and vegetable waste, and (ii) the application of these newly synthesized nanomaterials for removing selected pollutants from contaminated water. This project’s complexity and originality are further enhanced by tests conducted on the soil-plant system, which will help observe and understand the physiological effects of the newly developed nanoparticles.