Chelating materials for the removal of heavy metals from water

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

Remediation of Heavy Metals

Springer Cham

Año: 2021; p. 379 - 417

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