Heavy metal removal from wastewater using various adsorbents: a review

Heavy metals are discharged into water from various industries. They can be toxic or carcinogenic in nature and can cause severe problems for humans and aquatic ecosystems. Thus, the removal of heavy metals fromwastewater is a serious problem. The adsorption process is widely used for the removal of heavy metals from wastewater because of its low cost, availability and eco-friendly nature. Both commercial adsorbents and bioadsorbents are used for the removal of heavy metals fromwastewater, with high removal capacity. This review article aims to compile scattered information on the different adsorbents that are used for heavy metal removal and to provide information on the commercially available and natural bioadsorbents used for removal of chromium, cadmium and copper, in particular. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Licence (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), which permits copying and redistribution for non-commercial purposes with no derivatives, provided the original work is properly cited (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). doi: 10.2166/wrd.2016.104 Renu Madhu Agarwal (corresponding author) K. Singh Department of Chemical Engineering, Malaviya National Institute of Technology, JLN Marg, Jaipur 302017, India E-mail: [email protected]