Chelating materials for the removal of heavy metals from water

LETICIA B. ESCUDERO; EMILIANO F. FIORENTINI; PAMELA Y. QUINTAS

Springer

Año: 2021 p. 81

978-3-030-80334-6

Water is considered as a vital substance in the environment. Heavy metals cancontaminate the water sources through different natural processes but mainly throughhuman activities. Heavy metal ions do not degrade in nature. This characteristic hasachieved that researchers work hard in the development of different treatments to removeheavy metals from water. Accordingly, several treatments for remediation of contaminantshave been performed, including ion exchange, reverse osmosis, filtration, electrodialysis,precipitation, electrochemical process, biological treatment, coagulation/flocculation, andadsorption. Within these treatments, adsorption has emerged as an efficient and low?costbiotechnology. Numerous materials have been applied to adsorb heavy metals to remediatecontaminated water, including resins, nanomaterials, membranes, biomass, industrial andagricultural wastes, metal organic frameworks, composites, chelating materials, amongothers.In this chapter we have a special focus on the use of different chelating materials(membranes, nanomaterials, polymers, resins, surfactants, chitosan and its derivates,covalent and metal organic frameworks and hybrid materials) to remove heavy metals fromwater. The state of the art application of these chelating materials was carefully reviewedand discussed throughout the chapter. The adsorptive potential of chelating materials toremove heavy metals can be evidenced. The adsorption processes emphasize the relevanceof numerous functional groups present on the chelating materials, which can form metalliccomplexes with the target elements. In the majority of the reviewed works, a removalefficiency higher that 70% was reached. Finally, other relevant information related toadsorption is presented in the chapter.