Carbon-Based Layered Double Hydroxides for Solar Photomineralization of Textile Dye Waste

Photomineralization of wastewater released from the dye industry, textile industry, and pharmaceutical industry has attracted substantial attention recently in the quest to exploit sunlight as a sustainable source for environmental restoration. It is a green nanotechnology of wastewater treatment over microbial bioremediation technique. Research in this area aims to use solar energy and save water, two of nature’s most plentiful resources, to solve environmental problems in an environmentally beneficial manner. Transition metal-based hydrotalcite layered compounds have garnered a lot of interest as intriguing materials in this sector. On the contrary, carbon-based quantum dots are the most promising materials used as effective nanoreactors to extract different chemical processes triggered by solar radiation. The tunability of the bandgap by varying its size enables it to absorb electromagnetic radiation in a wide range. The presence of abundant carbon material and the easy synthesis procedure of carbon-based quantum dots and their dual redox nature greatly add to their effectiveness as a photocatalyst for the photo mineralization of aqueous contaminants. However, the leaching of metal ions from LDH and the high charge recombination rate of carbon-based quantum dots forced us to make the nanohybrid of the two tremendously efficient catalysts for efficient photo-mineralization of wastewater. Thus, this chapter provides an extensive review of current efforts on the fabrication and application of carbon-based quantum dots and layered double hydroxide composites. Moreover, a detailed discussion of their associated processes is presented. Lastly, a few viewpoints are put up for potential future study paths about the investigation of effective and affordable clay composite materials.