Review of Pistachio (Pistacia) Shell Use to Remove Pollutants from Aqua Media

Abstract

The paper summarizes literature data on using crushed pistachio shells (Pistacia vera L.) as sorption materials to remove ions of various metals, dyes, and antibiotics from aqueous media. It provides brief information on the amount of pistachio processing waste, its chemical composition, and its recycling methods. It gives the adsorption process parameters and the values of pistachio shell sorption parameters for the studied pollutants. It was shown that pistachio shells' sorption characteristics for various pollutants could be increased by chemical modification with various chemical reagents. The isotherms of pollutant adsorption with pistachio shells were found to be, in most cases, more accurately described by the Langmuir model, and the process kinetics to follow in most cases, the pseudo-second-order model. It is shown that the pistachio shell is a good precursor for activated carbons production, which can also be used for the adsorption of various pollutants from aqueous media.