CHAPTER 9. Functional Nanocomposites for Heavy Metal Removal

Heavy metals are widely found in effluents of various industrial wastewaters as well as in surface and groundwater. Heavy metals are located between groups 3 and 16 of the Periodic Table. Heavy metals are usually divided into three general groups, which are toxic to human and living organisms. A wide range of physical, chemical, and biological methods such as electrochemical processes, membrane technology, chemical deposition, coagulation, ion exchange, biodegradation, and adsorption techniques are available to remove heavy metals from contaminated water. To remove heavy metals from contaminated water, adsorption is one of the techniques that, due to its significant efficiency, low cost, simplicity, variety, selectivity for specific metals, less need to use chemical additives also A wide range of physical, chemical, and biological methods such as electrochemical processes, membrane technology, chemical deposition, coagulation, ion exchange, biodegradation, and adsorption techniques are available to remove heavy metals from contaminated water. To remove heavy metals from contaminated water, adsorption is one of the techniques that, due to its significant efficiency, low cost, simplicity, variety, selectivity for specific metals, less need to use chemical additives, and the possibility of regenerating and reusing the adsorbent, has been widely used. Although nano-adsorbents have considerable adsorption capacity, due to the nano scale of the particles their direct use in a discontinuous bed requires the integration of the adsorption process with an additional post-treatment process to completely remove the nanoparticles from the water before use. One of the suitable substrates to trap the nano-adsorbents are membrane structures called adsorbent membranes. This chapter deals with the synthesis, characterization, performance evaluation and challenges of adsorptive mixed matrix membranes for heavy metal removal.