GREEN NANOTECHNOLOGY OVERVIEW AND FURTHER PROSPECTS. Edited by Marcelo L. Larramendy and Sonia Soloneski

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1 GREEN NANOTECHNOLOGY OVERVIEW AND FURTHER PROSPECTS Edited by Marcelo L. Larramendy and Sonia Soloneski

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3 GREEN NANOTECHNOLOGY - OVERVIEW AND FURTHER PROSPECTS Edited by Marcelo L. Larramendy and Sonia Soloneski

4 Green Nanotechnology - Overview and Further Prospects Edited by Marcelo L. Larramendy and Sonia Soloneski Contributors Seyed Mohsen Sadeghzadeh, Mehdi Mogharabi, Francesco Ruffino, Giuseppe Cacciato, Massimo Zimbone, Maria Grazia Grimaldi, Fahmina Zafar, Eram Sharmin, Nahid Nishat, Sharif Ahmad, André Decroly, Marc Debliquy, Arnaud Krumpmann, Driss Lahem, Man Singh, Xianfeng Chen, Jia Lin, Xiaolin Liu, Shu Zhu, Vladimir V. V. Kouznetsov, Carlos A. Andrés Martínez Bonilla, Ahmad Alshammari, V. Narayana Kalevaru, Andreas Martin, Guilin Chen, Shuiyuan Chen, Zhigao Huang, Jorge Salvador, Samuel Silvestre, Maria Manuel Silva Published by InTech Janeza Trdine 9, Rijeka, Croatia The Editor(s) and the Author(s) 2016 The moral rights of the editor(s) and the author(s) have been asserted. All rights to the book as a whole are reserved by InTech. The book as a whole (compilation) cannot be reproduced, distributed or used for commercial or non-commercial purposes without InTech's written permission. Enquiries concerning the use of the book should be directed to InTech's rights and permissions department (permissions@intechopen.com). Violations are liable to prosecution under the governing Copyright Law. Individual chapters of this publication are distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License which permits commercial use, distribution and reproduction of the individual chapters, provided the original author(s) and source publication are appropriately acknowledged. More details and guidelines concerning content reuse and adaptation can be found at Notice Statements and opinions expressed in the chapters are these of the individual contributors and not necessarily those of the editors or publisher. No responsibility is accepted for the accuracy of information contained in the published chapters. The publisher assumes no responsibility for any damage or injury to persons or property arising out of the use of any materials, instructions, methods or ideas contained in the book. Publishing Process Manager Dajana Pemac Technical Editor InTech DTP team Cover InTech Design team First published June, 2016 Printed in Croatia Additional hard copies can be obtained from orders@intechopen.com Green Nanotechnology - Overview and Further Prospects, Edited by Marcelo L. Larramendy and Sonia Soloneski p. cm. Print ISBN Online ISBN

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7 Contents Preface VII Chapter 1 Metal Nanoparticles as Emerging Green Catalysts 1 Ahmad Alshammari, V. Narayana Kalevaru and Andreas Martin Chapter 2 Recent Highlights in Green Oxidative Chemical Processes Applied to Steroid Chemistry 35 Samuel M. Silvestre, M. Manuel C. Silva and Jorge A. R. Salvador Chapter 3 Metal Complexes Immobilized on Magnetic Nanoparticles 57 Seyed Mohsen Sadeghzadeh and Mehdi Mogharabi Chapter 4 Chapter 5 TiO2 Nanostructures and Nanocomposites for Sustainable Photocatalytic Water Purification 87 Giuseppe Cacciato, Massimo Zimbone, Francesco Ruffino and Maria Grazia Grimaldi Nanostructured TiO2 Layers for Photovoltaic and Gas Sensing Applications 117 André Decroly, Arnaud Krumpmann, Marc Debliquy and Driss Lahem Chapter 6 Anodic Nanostructures for Solar Cell Applications 147 Jia Lin, Xiaolin Liu, Shu Zhu and Xianfeng Chen Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Green Quantum Dots: Basics, Green Synthesis, and Nanotechnological Applications 173 Carlos A. Martínez Bonilla and Vladimir V. Kouznetsov Recent Advances in Environment-Friendly Alkyd Nanocomposites Towards Greener Coatings 193 Eram Sharmin, Fahmina Zafar, Nahid Nishat and Sharif Ahmad

8 VI Contents Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Preparation of Cu2ZnSnS/Se4 Thin Films from Oxide Precursors and its Prospect for Other Cu2MSnS4 Thin Films 209 Guilin Chen, Shuiyuan Chen and Zhigao Huang Friccohesity and Tentropy: New Models of Molecular Sciences 223 Man Singh

9 Preface In the 1990s, a new emerging scientific field arose with the potential to radically generate new products and processes: nanoscience, the study of structures and materials on the scale of nanometers. Nanoparticles have dimensions ranging from 1 up to 100 nanometers, and they possess physicochemical characteristics and coatings that impart upon them unique electrical, thermal, mechanical, and imaging properties that make them highly attractive for applications within the commercial, pharmaceutical, medical, food packaging, cosmetics, household appliance, and environmental sectors, among others. It has been estimated that the production of nanomaterials will continue to increase, and that by 2020, it will increase to more than 25 times the current rate. Nanoscience and nanotechnology can be used across all other scientific fields, such as chemistry, biology, physics, materials science, and engineering. During recent years, proactive multidisciplinary research initiatives have been launched by regulatory institutions such as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (U.S. EPA), the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS, USA), the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA, Italy), and the International Agency of Research on Cancer (IARC, France), who are charged with the protection of human health and the environment and warranting that the employment of engineered nanotechnological products can occur without hazardous consequences. Occupational health risks associated with manufacturing and using nanomaterials are not yet clearly understood. Minimal information is currently available on dominant exposure routes, potential exposure levels, and material toxicity of nanoscale materials. Although the potential health effects of such exposures are not entirely understood at this time, research investigations indicate that at least some of these nanoparticles are biologically active. Nowadays, there is general and accepted recognition worldwide that the in vitro, in vivo, and in silico testing strategies and safety assessments currently in place can also be used for nanomaterials to obtain relevant data to help in the development of guidelines for regulating human and environmental exposure to nanoparticles. Studies in the field of emerging nanomaterials and nanotechnologies are of increasing importance; most scientific databases reveal increasing numbers of publications such as books, papers, reviews, and even patents, and there is an increasing market share of nanotechnology products, currently in the thousands of billons of US dollars worldwide. Furthermore, the number of publications on the topic of nanoparticles has increased at an almost exponential rate since the early 1990s. In agreement, in the beginning of 2016, a search on the two major databases Scopus and PubMed indicated the existence of nearly 310,000 and 120,000 documents reported so far, respectively.

10 VIII Preface Actually, researchers are studying and analyzing different approaches and ways that nanotechnology can be made beneficial to the environment and its compartments. This scientific aspect has been branded or labeled green nanotechnology, since it focuses on challenges at the nanoscale level that have to be overcome to ensure eco-friendly processes and products. In other words, the purposes of green nanotechnology are to create eco-friendly designs within nanotechnology and use them to diminish health and environmental hazards by creating new methodologies to replace existing applications using green nanotechnology products. In this sense, nanotechnology will not merely initiate the next industrial scientific revolution; it will surely facilitate technological solutions. In this regard, it is clearly expected and accepted that green nanotechnology will assist, for example, in helping to provide clean water worldwide through novel filtration methodologies and the proficiency to decontaminate dirty water; in solving a large number of efficiency issues stopping the extensive use of renewable energy generation; in helping waste management and environmental remediation, by reducing waste dramatically or by developing new industrial and chemical procedures; and in developing materials that will act as alternative replacements for hazardous processes and constituents, causing reductions in material, energy, and waste generation, among other practical solutions. This book, Green Nanotechnology Overview and Further Prospects, is intended to provide an overview and practical examples of the use of nanomaterials in the new scientific challenges of the green nanotechnology world. We aimed to compile information from a diversity of sources into a single volume to give some real-time examples, extending the concept that green nanotechnology is far from being a scientific conundrum, and instead a real answer to some of the actual problems the whole planet is dealing with. This book comprises, first, three chapters describing metal and magnetic nanoparticles and their application as green catalysts. The first chapter is aimed at providing a comprehensive overview about metal nanoparticles and their application as emerging green catalysts. The second chapter clearly describes a selection of the most recent and relevant applications of pharmaceutical green chemistry in oxidative steroid synthesis using chemical methods, stressing the catalytic processes, especially those involving the use of heterogeneous nanocatalysts, whose application in this context has increased over the last years. Finally, the third chapter describes both the use of magnetic nanoparticles in organic reaction as a scaffold for the immobilization of metal complexes and the improvement of the methods of production and applying catalysts with magnetic properties in organic reaction. Then, four chapters are incorporated describing the synthesis, characterization, and photocatalytic and antibacterial activity of TiO 2 and other metal nanoparticles for their application in sustainable photocatalytic water purification and for photovoltaic and gas sensing applications. Furthermore, the use of these nanostructures in solar cells to enhance light harvesting and charge collection and the advanced applications of quantum dot-based nanomaterials are addressed, with special emphasis on the pursuit of sustainable development in clean energy resources. The next two chapters discuss, respectively, alkyd coatings and their classification and preparation methods, and nanocomposite coatings, their green synthesis routes, their use in the preparation of Cu 2 ZnSnSe 4 and Cu 2 ZnSnS 4 thin films from oxide precursors, and the rationality of applying the oxide method in thin films, including the reactive thermodynamics and annealing process. Last, this book includes a final chapter on friccohesity and fentropy as new models for nanoscale molecular science.

11 Preface IX Many researchers have contributed to the publication of this book. Given the fast pace of new scientific publications shedding light on the matter, this book will probably be outdated very soon. We regard this as a positive and healthy fact. The editors hope that this book will continue to meet the expectations and needs of all interested in the green nanotechnology scientific world. Marcelo L. Larramendy Ph.D. and Sonia Soloneski Ph.D. School of Natural Sciences and Museum National University of La Plata La Plata, Argentina