Book Title: Artificially Intelligent Nanomaterials for Environmental Engineering
ISBN: 978-3-527-34494-9
Publisher: Wiley-VCH
Available Date: around December 2018
Book Background and Introduction:
Tremendous progress has been made in the past decade in the
application of nanotechnology to environmental engineering, or
‘environmental nanotechnology’ in short. The field of environmental
nanotechnology is currently in its ‘rational design’ phase where heavy emphasis
is on ‘design-for-purpose’.
Highly visible and sensational in the field of general science and
engineering nowadays is the rise of artificial intelligence (AI), which emphasizes the
capability of a machine to imitate intelligent human
behavior so to perform tasks normally requiring human intelligence but without
human-like intervention. Thus, the design of AI machine necessitates proactive, instead of reactive, functionality, which
endows the machine with anticipatory, change-oriented and self-initiated
behavior. Given that there are inherent complexity and unpredictability and more
particularly varying and even quite contrasting application scenarios in
environmental problems, an ideal design of nanomaterials to be applied to environmental engineering should
be proactive with artificial intelligence.
As a matter of
fact, AI has entered the field of environmental nanotechnology in the past
decade where nanomaterials are entrusted with proactive functionalities
so that these ‘nano-machines’ perceive their surroundings
and subsequently take automated actions or
make self-adjustments for the purpose of maximizing their possibility to
achieve their desired goal.
There have been some exploratory and very valuable works done in
the artificially intelligent nanomaterials for environmental engineering. For example, the self-propelled
artificially intelligent nano-motors that were able to autonomously travel
through polluted samples with their own power and penetrate inaccessible
locations, which have potential applications to water-quality screening and
pollutant removal and degradation. Conventional porous filtration membranes
were imparted with intelligent gates that could self-regulate their permeation
and species selectivity, which can be used for more effective environmental
separation. The materials were made to switch their oil and water wettability
between two opposite sides in response to external triggers and were used for
self-controlled, on-demand, and selective oil-water separation. Self-healing
environmental materials were made to self-recover their physical damages,
self-restore their lost functions and self-clean their contaminated surfaces. Given the sensational
and frequent PM2.5 induced severe air quality incidents these years, the
nanofibrous membrane air filters were created with artificially intelligent designs toward
self-powered particulate matter collection and with thermal management, etc.
The rational design of artificially
intelligent nanomaterials for environmental engineering is still at its very early infant
stage, but it is gaining fast popularity as it is expected to offer disruptive and next generation technologies for environmental engineering.
The objective
of the book is to clearly lay out the design concepts, majorly
chemical principles, of artificially intelligent environmental nanomaterials
and provide eye-opening proof-of-concept examples in relevant and significant
applications. It is our sincere hope that this book, along with its educational
purpose, would inspire further research efforts to develop advanced artificially intelligent
nanomaterials for the enhancement of the overall quality of the environment and human health.