The rapid pace of industrialization together with diverse human activities makes various harmful pollutants, including micro/nanoplastics, small organic molecules, heavy metal ions, and pathogenic microorganisms, drain in the environment. Plastics are one of the major sources of environmental pollution, especially in water bodies. There, plastic waste fragments into smaller and more dangerous pieces, namely microplastics (< 5 mm) and nanoplastics (<1000 nm). These plastic particles are particularly harmful as they absorb other pollutants on their surface, increasing their toxicity. Moreover, they are ingested by fish and propagate through the food chain or directly contaminate drinking water systems, posing serious risks to the health of all living beings. At the same time, to fulfill the increasing demand for food, the use of pesticides in agriculture has been continuously intensified. However, it is demonstrated that less than 1% of the applied pesticide reaches and destroys the pest, while the remaining contaminates soil, water, and food.The European Commission has stated the importance of addressing this issue in the European Green Deals "Eliminating Pollution" and "From farm to fork". Therefore, there is an urgent need for practical strategies to remove and quantify pollutants in water. MIPhmotors aims to address these challenges by developing self-propelled micro/nanorobots able to propel in water under light irradiation and, simultaneously, accelerate the capture or degradation of water pollutants, followed by their electrochemical detection. Micro/nanorobots represent the frontier of the research in materials science and nanotechnology, combining the unique physicochemical properties of micro/nanoscale materials with the active motion dimension, accelerating a variety of diffusion-limited processes or remotely operating in difficult to access areas. They can be powered by chemical fuels or external energy sources (light and magnetic fields), and programmed to perform desired tasks.
On these bases, MIPhmotors overall objectives are:
1) the formulation of light-powered micro/nanorobots based on metal/semiconductor structures to speed up the capture or degradation of water pollutants;
2) the electrochemical detection of water pollutants using low-cost and portable screen-printed electrodes, which can be in principle utilized in situ (e.g. in natural water bodies) without requiring any sample analysis in laboratories with bulky and expensive equipment manoeuvred by expert staff.
