**1. Introduction**

Pollution due to heavy metals possesses a serious issue not only to human health but also to the environment and urban infrastructure. Heavy metals can be found in wastewater, groundwater, lakes, and streams, but also in soils or sediments. Heavy metals come from natural sources, but they can also originate from different anthropogenic activities (**Figure 1**). Human exposure to them has risen dramatically as a result of an exponential increase in their use in several industrial, agricultural, domestic, and technological applications [1]. Even though metals such as cobalt (Co), copper (Cu), iron (Fe), manganese (Mn), selenium (Se), or zinc (Zn)

#### **Figure 1.**

*The origin of some of the heavy metals released to the environment.*

play essential biochemical roles in the cells of living beings, in high concentrations or as a result of long-term exposure, they are associated with cellular and tissue damage leading to adverse effects and diseases [2]. Notably, arsenic (As), cadmium (Cd), chromium (Cr), lead (Pb), and mercury (Hg) are ranked among the metals of great public health significance [1].

In order to minimize the damage to public health and other living organisms due to heavy metals, remediation appeared to rectify and redeem the environment after anthropogenic disturbance [3]. Remediation aims to implement and realize efficient actions for the eradication of diverse forms of pollution in three main activities: (1) remove formation damage, (2) testing before each remediation, and (3) routine treatment applications (maintenance) [4].

Remediation is just one of the multiple promising applications of nanotechnology. The utilization of nanotechnology concerning the environment classifies as follows: (1) the design and production of sustainable materials, (2) remediation using nanostructures, and (3) nano-based sensors [5]. Nanotechnology may contribute to any of the remediation facets, listed above, providing high selectivity (speciation and clean-up) and sensitivity (preconcentration) [6] to achieve trace levels in water, usually 100 microgram per gram.

The nanomaterials mainly used for removal are metal and iron oxides as they facilitate the precipitation and reduction of heavy metals to less harmful ionic species [7]. They are followed by carbonaceous materials such as fibers, carbon nanotubes, graphene, and graphene oxide. The porosity and surface area of carbonaceous materials allow them to easily form membranes for an efficient metal removal; besides, they serve as support of nanometals for easy recovery [8–10]. Other nanostructures based on silicon, such as silica and zeolite, are widely used due to its versatility and availability. The reactive and high surface area of porous silica allows the functionalization for multiple adsorptions of heavy metals, and zeolite allows selective separation of cations by ion exchange and adsorption from water [11, 12].

From this brief review, three main facts can be listed: (1) the importance of removing toxic heavy metals, (2) the role of nanotechnology on remediation, and (3) the use of diverse nanostructures for the removal of heavy metal from water.

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**Figure 2.**

*Low Dimensional Nanostructures: Measurement and Remediation Technologies Applied to Trace…*

In this context, the need for rapid and efficient removal of pollutants focused on toxic heavy metals with high selectivity and sensitivity from water is addressed in this work [1, 5, 6], considering the advantages offered by nanostructures. This book chapter summarizes some examples of nanostructures employed for wastewater treatment considering the three aspects listed above, as well as ways to reach heavy-

Nanotechnology is a multidisciplinary science focused on the design, processing, manipulation, and application of new materials at the nanoscale; it means between 1 and 100 nanometers (nm). It also comprises the modification of some properties of bulk materials. Nanostructures are nanometric materials with a defined morphology. They form a self-assembling of atoms, molecules, or macromolecules. Nowadays, thanks to the application of nanostructures, nanotechnology can contribute to the solution or mitigation of part of the worldwide problems involving environmental pollution [13]. The main strategies focus on different categories: (1) sustainable design and synthesis of nanostructures; (2) new generation technology using functionalized nanostructures to remove contaminants from water, air, and soil; (3) sensor design for the estimation and quantification of pollutants; (4) study of toxicity and evaluation of environmental and health implications associated with the use of nanostructures for remediation; (5) emerging solutions [5, 14, 15]. Nanostructures are materials or structures with at least one dimension in the nanometer scale (1–100 nm) [16]. A zero-dimension (0D) material has a nanometer scale in each of the three directions (x, y, z), while a one-dimension (1D) material has a nanometer-scale only in two directions. A two-dimension (2D) structure contains a nanometer-scale only in one direction. Three-dimensional (3D) nanostructures are included in this classification even though their dimensions are higher than 100 nm, but their construction is a hierarchical architecture that grows in all directions using 0D, 1D, and 2D nanostructures. **Figure 2** presents a scheme

*Schematic for the classification of low dimensional nanostructures: zero dimension (0D), one dimension (1D), two dimension (2D), and three dimension (3D). Examples for each dimension are mentioned in the text.*

metal concentrations lower than trace-level limit, after removal.

**2. Nanotechnology and nanostructures classification**

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.93263*

*Low Dimensional Nanostructures: Measurement and Remediation Technologies Applied to Trace… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.93263*

In this context, the need for rapid and efficient removal of pollutants focused on toxic heavy metals with high selectivity and sensitivity from water is addressed in this work [1, 5, 6], considering the advantages offered by nanostructures. This book chapter summarizes some examples of nanostructures employed for wastewater treatment considering the three aspects listed above, as well as ways to reach heavymetal concentrations lower than trace-level limit, after removal.
