Recent literature on biosorption as a sustainable environmental technology to remove pollutants

ELIANA S. LEMOS; ESTEFANÍA B. INGRASSIA; LETICIA B. ESCUDERO

Biotechnology for Toxicity Remediation and Environmental Sustainability

CRC Press, Taylor and Francis Group

Año: 2023; p. 1 - 33

Wastewater can contain a wide variety of pollutants, such as toxic metals, hydrocarbons, dyes, pesticides, and pharmaceutical compounds. The high concentrations of pollutants present in wastewater make them important sources of environmental pollution. To solve this problem, researchers have developed environmental remediation technologies to remove pollutants from wastewater. In this sense, environmental biotechnology offers advantages compared to classical remediation technologies, mainly its compatibility with environmental care. Biosorption is gaining the attention of researchers as it is an economical and environmentally friendly technology, besides offering the possibility of removing pollutants in continuous systems. In this chapter, an overview of pollutants potentially present in wastewater will be presented. The concept of biosorption will be explained, and its interaction with green chemistry will be considered. The biosorbents that have been used to remove pollutants from wastewater will be exposed. The efficiency of biosorbents is demonstrated, achieving high pollutants removal percentages. Moreover, some hybrid biomaterials are more efficient alternatives to individual biosorbents, usually contributing to improving the fragility of a biosorbents, and hence its possibility of reutilization. The works discussed in this chapter reveal that the percentage of pollutant removal is higher using hybrid biomaterials compared to the individual parts of the biosorbent.