Nanocellulose-Based Materials for Heavy Metal Removal from Wastewater

Water contaminated with heavy metals kept increasing due to the high population and production of wastewater generation. Numerous techniques and materials have been manipulated in order to minimize the problems to treat the present of heavy metals in wastewaters. The advancement of nanocellulose has attracted noteworthy attention among researchers since it has shown its valuable potentials, including renewability, biodegradability, high strength and stiffness. The great properties make nanocellulose as promising based materials to be implemented in heavy metals removal. In general, nanocellulose can be extracted from different kinds of cellulose resources. In this chapter, the production, modification and application of three types of nanocellulose, which are cellulose nanocrystalline (CNC), cellulose nanofibrils (CNF) and bacteria cellulose (BC) have been explored. We highlighted on the research endeavor to improve the properties of the nanocellulose especially in terms of modification in order to meet the requirement for the materials to be applied in wastewater treatment. In detail, this paper discusses the application of nanocellulose under various kinds of modification to suit heavy metals removal from wastewater.