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Biopolymeric Hydrogels: A New Era in Combating Heavy Metal Pollution in Industrial Wastewater

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Membranes for Water Treatment and Remediation

Part of the book series: Materials Horizons: From Nature to Nanomaterials ((MHFNN))

Abstract

Recent advancement of materials science reveals various technological aspects of natural biopolymeric materials. In the past few years, biopolymers are gaining attention due to their biocompatibility and excellent physicochemical properties. One of the key aspects of these biopolymers is surely heavy metal adsorption and removal from wastewater. Hydrogels, a three-dimensional cross-linked hydrophilic biopolymeric network having high water retention property has pronounced adsorption efficacy among numerous types of biopolymers. These flexible materials are easy to produce and relatively a lost-cost alternative to various conventional adsorbents. Heavy metals like Cr6+, Fe3+, Pb2+, Hg2+, As3+, etc. could be enormously harmful to the environment due to their severe toxicity. In recent years, hydrogels have been widely used in removing such toxic heavy metals from different water bodies. Sometimes, various nanomaterials have been impregnated into the hydrogel matrix to enhance the removal capacity of the system. The removal efficacy of these modified hydrogel systems is quite high compared to other conventional carbon-based adsorbents. This study reviews the recent advancements of biopolymeric hydrogels in the field of heavy metal adsorption in wastewater. Such a study could be useful for making futuristic bio-adsorbent materials for a cleaner and greener environment.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physics, Jadavpur University, Kolkata, 700032, India

    Aliva Saha, Souravi Bardhan, Shubham Roy, Subhojit Dutta & Sukhen Das

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  1. Aliva Saha
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  2. Souravi Bardhan
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  3. Shubham Roy
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  4. Subhojit Dutta
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  5. Sukhen Das
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Correspondence to Sukhen Das .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biotechnology and Bioinformatics, Jaypee University of Information Technology, Waknaghat, India

    Ashok Kumar Nadda

  2. Department of Environmental Studies, Centre for Distance and Online Education, Rabindra Bharati University, Kolkata, West Bengal, India

    Priya Banerjee

  3. University Institute of Biotechnology, Chandigarh University, Mohali, Punjab, India

    Swati Sharma

  4. Department of Chemistry, Biochemistry and Physics, Université du Québec à Trois-Rivière, Trois-Rivières, QC, Canada

    Phuong Nguyen-Tri

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Saha, A., Bardhan, S., Roy, S., Dutta, S., Das, S. (2023). Biopolymeric Hydrogels: A New Era in Combating Heavy Metal Pollution in Industrial Wastewater. In: Nadda, A.K., Banerjee, P., Sharma, S., Nguyen-Tri, P. (eds) Membranes for Water Treatment and Remediation. Materials Horizons: From Nature to Nanomaterials. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-9176-9_8

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