REVIEW article
Front. Environ. Eng.
Sec. Water, Waste and Wastewater Engineering
This article is part of the Research TopicWastewater Valorization: Harnessing AI, Dynamic Modeling, and Novel Resource Recovery for Sustainable DevelopmentView all articles
A Nanotechnology Roadmap for Circular Wastewater Management
Provisionally accepted
- 1Appalachian State University, Boone, United States
- 2Mbeya University of Science and Technology, Mbeya, Tanzania
- 3Auchi Polytechnic, Auchi, Nigeria
- 4The University of Dodoma, Dodoma, Tanzania
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Circular wastewater management is increasingly recognized as a critical lever for climate resilience, water security, and the recovery of nutrients, energy, and strategic materials. Yet conventional treatment infrastructures remain constrained by limited selectivity, high energy demand, operational inflexibility, and weak coupling between treatment performance and resource valorization. Although nanotechnology has demonstrated substantial potential to address these bottlenecks, real-world deployment remains fragmented due to fouling, regeneration burdens, scale-up uncertainty, and unresolved safety and governance challenges. This review advances a roadmap that moves beyond material-centric assessments toward a decision-oriented, scale-aware framework for integrating nanotechnology into circular wastewater systems. Drawing on recent laboratory advances, pilot studies, and early demonstrations across municipal, industrial, and agro-food contexts, we situate nano-enabled adsorbents, catalysts, membranes, bio–nano hybrids, and nanosensors within integrated treatment–recovery–reuse platforms, rather than isolated unit operations. Techno-economic and life-cycle evidence is synthesized to identify conditions under which nano-enabled process trains deliver net circular value relative to incumbent technologies. The roadmap explicitly couples nanotechnology with digital intelligence, including nanosensing, AI-enabled monitoring, digital twins, and adaptive control, to translate nanoscale functionality into robust system-level performance under variable influent conditions. To support actionable decision-making, we introduce a pollutant-to-valorization decision matrix, a readiness–impact scorecard, and a 2030 research and standards agenda emphasizing safe-by-design materials, scalable regeneration, antifouling interfaces, hybrid bio–nano reactors, and harmonized risk assessment. By integrating materials science, digital process control, and governance, this roadmap positions nanotechnology as a systems enabler for circular wastewater infrastructure rather than a standalone fix.
Keywords: circular wastewater systems, Digital Twins, Life-cycle Assessment, nanosensors, nanotechnology roadmap, resource recovery, safe-by-design, Techno-economic analysis
Received: 11 Jan 2026; Accepted: 03 Feb 2026.
Copyright: © 2026 Ogwu, Ojija, Aliu and Ulimboka. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Matthew Chidozie Ogwu
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