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A critical review on recent developments in MOF adsorbents for the elimination of toxic heavy metals from aqueous solutions

Abstract

Effective and substantial remediation of contaminants especially heavy metals from water is still a big challenge in terms of both environmental and biological perspectives because of their adverse effects on the human health. Many techniques including adsorption, ion exchange, co-precipitation, chemical reduction, ultrafiltration, etc. are reported for eliminating heavy metal ions from the water. However, adsorption has preferred because of its simple and easy handlings. Several types of adsorbents are observed and documented well for the purpose. Recently, highly porous metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) were developed by incorporating metals and organic ligands together and claimed as potent adsorbents for the remediation of highly toxic heavy metals from the aqueous solutions due to their unique features like greater surface area, high chemical stability, green and reuse material, etc. In this review, the authors discussed systematically some recent developments about secure MOFs to eliminate the toxic metals such as arsenic (both arsenite and arsenate), chromium(VI), cadmium (Cd), mercury (Hg) and lead (Pb). MOFs are observed as the most efficient adsorbents with greater selectivity as well as high adsorption capacity for metallic contamination.

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Acknowledgements

The authors are thankful to Chitkara University for providing necessary facilities.

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There is no funding for this research work.

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LR, literature review and drafting of the manuscript; JK, critical review, expert opinion and supervision; PM, graphical design and expert opinion; and ALS, conceptualization and supervision of manuscript. All authors contributed to the research article and approved the final version.

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Correspondence to Jyotsna Kaushal.

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Rani, L., Kaushal, J., Srivastav, A.L. et al. A critical review on recent developments in MOF adsorbents for the elimination of toxic heavy metals from aqueous solutions. Environ Sci Pollut Res 27, 44771–44796 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-020-10738-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-020-10738-8

Keywords

  • MOFs
  • Ligands
  • Adsorption
  • Water contaminants
  • Heavy metals