Adsorption and biosorption for pollutant removal

Adsorption and biosorption research investigates how solid materials bind and concentrate dissolved contaminants—heavy metals, synthetic dyes, pharmaceuticals—onto their surfaces, effectively pulling pollutants out of water and wastewater streams. The efficiency of this process depends on physical properties such as surface area and pore size distribution, as well as the chemical affinity between the sorbent and the target pollutant, which is why researchers devote considerable effort to characterizing and engineering materials like activated carbon, biochar, and nanomaterials with tailored architectures. Biosorption extends this framework by using biological materials—agricultural waste, algae, microbial biomass—as low-cost, often renewable alternatives to synthetic adsorbents, raising practical questions about scalability, regeneration, and performance under the complex, variable chemistry of real wastewater. Active directions include understanding the mechanistic interplay captured by kinetic and isotherm models, developing composite materials that combine adsorption with other removal pathways, and translating laboratory-scale findings into systems that hold up under the messy conditions of actual treatment facilities.

Works

120,500

Total citations

3,418,025

Keywords

AdsorptionContaminant RemovalWastewater TreatmentSurface AreaPore Size DistributionBiochar