This document discusses how nanotechnology can be used to detect, clean up, and prevent air pollution. It describes various air pollutants and their health impacts. Nanotechnology enables sensing of pollutants using portable sensors. It can also purify air through photocatalysts that use light to oxidize pollutants, and nanofilters such as nanofiber membranes coated with silver nanoparticles that capture bacteria. Additional applications include using nanocatalysts to break down volatile organic compounds and convert carbon dioxide to other usable substances.

2. C
O
N
T
E
N
T
S
• INTRODUCTION
• THE SILENT KILLER
• AIR POLLUTION IN INDIA
• NANOTECHNOLOGY TO PURIFY THE NATURE
• CONTAMINANTS OF AIR
• NANOTECH TO DETECT AIR POLLUTION
• CLEANUP AND PURIFICATION USING
NANOTECHNOLOGY
• PHOTOCATALYST - CHEMICAL METHOD
• NANO FILTERS – PHYSICAL METHOD
• AIR POLLUTION PREVENTION USING
NANOTECHNOLOGY

3. INTRODUCTION
1
• Air pollution is a man made disaster due to mixture of Car emissions, chemicals from
factories, dust, pollen and mold spores into the environment.
2
• Environmental contamination is one of the important issues that the world is confronting
today, and it is expanding with each passing year and leading to grave and harmful
effect to the earth.
3
• In Worldwide, about 4.2 million deaths every year as a result of exposure to ambient
air pollution.

4. THE SILENT KILLER
1
• At present, the air contains various pollutants like CO, chlorofluorocarbons, volatile
organic compounds, hydrocarbons, and nitrogen oxides.
2
• People experience a wide range of health effects from being exposed to air pollution
which slowly causes pneumonia, bronchitis, heart disease, lung cancer, respiratory
illness, birth defects and even asthma in young children.
Lung Cancer
6% Pneumonia
12%
Stroke or Brain
Stroke
34%
Ischaemic Heart
Disease
26%
Chronic
Obstructive
Pulmonary Disease
22%

5. AIR POLLUTION IN INDIA
1
• According to a WHO study, 13 of the 20 most-polluted cities in the world
are in India.
2
• Air pollution was the fifth-largest killer in India and around 620,000 early
deaths occurred from air pollution-related diseases in 2010.
3
• The study estimated that of 480.7 million Disability-Adjusted Life Years in
India 4.4% of could be ascribed to ambient particulate matter pollution and
15.8 million of them were the result of polluted air in households.

6. 1
• Nanotechnology is manipulation of matter on an atomic, molecular, and
supramolecular scale.
2
• It has three main capabilities that can be applied in the fields of environment,
including
• the detection of contaminants (sensing and detection),
• the cleanup (remediation) and purification, and
• the pollution prevention.
NANOTECHNOLOGY TO PURIFY THE NATURE

7. CONTAMINANTS OF AIR
1
• Aerosol is a word that is used to describe a mixture of small liquid and/or solid particles
dispersed in a gaseous system, such as air.
2
• Aerosols can be natural or anthropogenic . Examples of natural aerosols are fog, mist,
dust, forest exudates and geyser steam. Examples of anthropogenic aerosols are haze,
particulate air pollutants and smoke.
3
• Bioaerosols are airborne particles of biological origin (e.g. bacteria, fungi, pollen,
viruses) and their by-products such as endotoxins or mycotoxins and other fragments.

8. NANOTECH TO DETECT AIR POLLUTION
1
• Using nanotechnology-based gas sensors; pollution is monitored at several ground
stations.
2
• The sensor unit is portable, provides instantaneous ground pollution concentrations
accurately, and can be readily deployed to disseminate real-time pollution data to a
web server providing a topological overview of monitored locations.
3
• These valuable sources of data to accurately assess urban pollution by real-time
monitoring using commercial sensors fabricated using nanofabrication technologies
and satellite imagery.

9. NANOTECH TO DETECT AIR POLLUTION
4
• Recent development of thin semiconductor films employing nanostructured
materials, Nerst-type potentiometeric devices based on solid-electrolyte membrane,
and NiO/ZnO capacitor-type gas sensors and detectors offer excellent
alternatives for environmental monitoring.
5
• The devices are low cost, light weight, and relatively small in size. Several different
kinds of thin-film sensors are commercially available for detection and monitoring
of NOx gas.
Volatile Organic
Compounds, 31%
Bioaerosols, 34%
Particulates,
35%
AIR QUALITY

10. NANOTECH TO DETECT AIR POLLUTION
6
• Other graphene sensor works by detecting individual carbon dioxide (CO2)
molecules and volatile organic compound gas molecules found in building and
interior materials, furniture and even household goods. The CO2 molecules
bond, by way of adsorption, to the suspended graphene sheet one by one by
when an electric field is applied.

11. CLEANUP AND PURIFICATION USING
NANOTECHNOLOGY
1
• In remediation of air pollution, there are two major ways in which nanotechnology can be
used. They are,
• Chemical Method
• Physical Method
2
• Chemical Method
• Catalysts can be used to enable a chemical reaction (which changes one type of
molecule to another) at lower temperatures or make the reaction more effective.
Nanotechnology can improve the performance and cost of catalysts used to transform
vapors escaping from cars or industrial plants into harmless gasses.

12. PHOTOCATALYST - CHEMICAL METHOD
1
• Photocatalyst is next generation of air purification technology which can
treat air pollutions caused by more than 85% kinds of harmful gases such as
car exhausts, NOx, formaldehyde, benzene and VOC’s.
2
• The mechanism involved is at presence of light, Photocatalyst produces
hydroxyl radicals and holes (h+) which react with organic materials and
oxidize harmful pollutants into nontoxic materials.

13. PHOTOCATALYST - CHEMICAL METHOD
3
• Materials such as titanium dioxide (TiO2), zinc oxide (ZnO), iron (III)
oxide (Fe2O3) and tungsten oxide(WO3) may serve as photocatalysts.
4
• Air purification using nanocrystal Photocatalytic materials is also
effective means of cleaning air to eliminate of nitrogen oxide
,formaldehyde and other pathogens.

14. NANO FILTERS - PHYSICAL METHOD
1
• Nanostructured membranes, on the other
hand, are being developed to separate
carbon dioxide from industrial plant
exhaust streams. The plan is to create a
method that can be implemented in any
power plant without expensive retrofitting.
2
• Nanofiber membranes for biomedical
filtration devices require antibacterial
activity to prevent bacterial contamination
under moisture conditions while exhibiting
biocompatibility.

15. NANO FILTERS - PHYSICAL METHOD
3
• An antibacterial membrane filter composed of electrospun polyacrylonitrile (PAN)
nanofibers with a surface functionalized with silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) by a facile
wetting process for in situ silver reduction under physiologically mild conditions.
Sequential wetting of thermally stabilized PAN nanofibers in silver nitrate (AgNO3)
and sodium hydroxide (NaOH) solutions enabled direct control of the amount of
synthesized AgNPs and their release behaviors in an aqueous environment.
4
• The fabricated AgNPs-functionalized PAN nanofibers (PAN-AgNPs) exhibit the
appreciable antibacterial efficiency against Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus
aureus bacteria with considerable sustainability for repetitive use.

16. AIR POLLUTION PREVENTION USING
NANOTECHNOLOGY
1
• Using gold nanoparticles embedded in a porous
manganese oxide as a room temperature catalyst to
breakdown volatile organic compounds in air.
2
• Using crystals containing nano sized pores to trap
carbon dioxide.
3
• Using a nanocatalyst containing cobalt and
platinum to remove nitrogen oxide from
smokestacks.
4
• Converting carbon dioxide to methanol; which can
be used to power fuel-cells.

17. AIR POLLUTION PREVENTION USING
NANOTECHNOLOGY
5
• Reducing emissions from power plants by
converting carbon dioxide into nanotubes.
6
• Silver nanoclusters based catalyst to reduce
propylene oxide generated during production of
plastic, paint and detergents.
7
• Nanobased coating in paints and cement to
filter and reduce air pollution in future.