Chapter 25 - Biobased materials for wastewater treatment

Elsevier, Advanced Applications of Biobased Materials: Food, Biomedical, and Environmental Applications, Volume , 1 January 2023
Authors: 
Dele-Afolabi T.T., Hanim M.A.A., Ojo-Kupoluyi O.J., Atoyebi E.O.

The rising utilization of heavy metals, pharmaceuticals, and dyes is a cardinal environmental issue. Wastewaters with contaminants such as heavy metals and dyes, substantially discharged from municipal and industrial activities, enter extremely into food chains leading to serious harm to human health. Different conventional technologies have so far been implemented to date to remove these contaminants from wastewaters. Among these technologies, biosorption has been widely utilized as it employs eco-friendly, sustainable, and economical biobased materials (i.e., biofibers, biofilms, biopolymers, and biocomposites) as biosorbents. On this account, several scientific investigations and patents have been published in recent times to make this technology more efficient and economical. This article documents existing knowledge on different categories of biobased materials as biosorbents for wastewater treatment and gives future perspectives for the development of advanced biobased materials capable of overcoming drawbacks from the existing ones.