Water quality management will be a priority issue in the near future. Indeed, due to scarcity and/or contamination of the water, regulatory frameworks will be increasingly strict to reduce environmental impacts of wastewater and to allow water to be reused. Moreover, drinking water quality standards must be improved in order to account for the emerging pollutants that are being detected in tap water. These tasks can only be achieved if new improved and sustainable water treatment technologies are developed. Nanomaterials are improving the ongoing research on advanced oxidation processes (AOPs). This work reviews the most important AOPs, namely: persulfate, chlorine and NH2Cl based processes, UV/H2O2, Fenton processes, ozone, and heterogeneous photocatalytic processes. A critical review of the current coupling of nanomaterials to some of these AOPs is presented. Besides the active role of the nanomaterials in the degradation of water contaminants/pollutants in the AOPs, the relevance of their adsorbent/absorbent function in these processes is also discussed.
Keywords: AOPs; UV treatments; chlorine; hydrogen peroxide; monochloramine; nanomaterials; ozone; persulfate; photocatalysis; water treatment.