Heavy metal removal through biosorptive pathways

Abstract

In this chapter, biosorption, applied in removing heavy metal ions from wastewater, will be introduced and discussed. A vast array of biological materials, especially bacteria, fungi, algae, and plant leaves and their extraction, have received increasing attention for heavy metal removal and recovery due to their perfect performance in both experimental research and field treatment, low cost, and large available quantities. Through summarizing the published literatures and reports, these progresses in this field involving biosorbents will be briefly reviewed and discussed. Also in this field, recycling economy is a hot and rising topic, for example, to synthesize metallic nanoparticles in the process of wastewater treatment. Although these explorations are still in their infancy of theoretic and experimental phase, the trend leads irresistibly the future of this field to a green and economical one. That is, for the concrete example, a controlled synthesis method will be developed of metallic nanoparticles of well-defined size and shape while treating waste effluents.