Polluting the natural water resources is a serious global issue, which is confirmed by the fact that today at least 2 billion people consume water from contaminated sources. The conventional wastewater treatment methods cannot effectively remove the persistent pollutants (e.g., drugs, organic dyes, pesticides) from the aqueous environment. Heterogeneous photocatalysis is a promising and sustainable alternative for water remediation. It is based on the interaction between light irradiation and the semiconductors (e.g., TiO2, ZnO) as photocatalysts, but these compounds, unfortunately, have some disadvantages. Hence, great attention has been paid to the nanotechnology as a possible way of improvement. Nanomaterials have extraordinary properties; however, their conventional synthesis is often difficult and requires a significant amount of dangerous chemicals. This concise topical review gives recent updates and trends in development of sustainable and green pathways in the synthesis of nanomaterials, as well as in their application for water remediation. In our review we put emphasis on the eco-friendly, mostly plant extract-based materials. The importance of this topic, including this study as well, is proved by the growing number of publications since 2018. Due to the current serious environmental issues (e.g., global warming, shortage of pure and quality water), it is necessary for the traditional TiO2 and ZnO semiconductors to be replaced with the harmless, non-toxic, and more powerful nanocomposites as photocatalysts. Not only because of their higher efficiency as compared to the bulk semiconductors, but also because of the presence of biomolecules that can add up to the pollutant removal efficiency, which has been already confirmed in many researches. However, despite the fact that the application of heterogeneous photocatalysis together with green nanotechnology is absolutely the future in water purification, there are some challenges which have to be overcome. The exact effects of the biomolecules obtained from plants in the synthesis of nanoparticles, as well as in the photocatalytic processes, are not exactly known and require further investigation. Furthermore, heterogeneous photocatalysis is a well-known and commonly examined process; however, its practical use outside the laboratory is expensive and difficult. Thus, it has to be simplified and improved in order to be available for everyone. The aim of our review is to suggest and prove that using these bio-inspired compounds it is possible to reduce human footprint in the nature.
Keywords: TiO2/ZnO; environmental pollution; green nanotechnology; heterogeneous photodegradation; plant extract; water purification.