Natural water gets contaminated with heavy metal ions because of industrial effluents' discharge into the aquatic environment. As these heavy metal ions cause various health hazards, they should be removed from the aqueous solution. Heavy metal ion concentration in the aqueous solution is very less, so conventional metal removal and recovery processes cannot be applied here. The adsorption method is a great alternative to all these processes as it is a cost-effective and easy method. The use of natural, low-cost materials as adsorbents is eco-friendly also. However, metal uptake capacity of low-cost materials is very less. So, modification is required for low-cost materials to increase their efficiency. In the present review, different modification procedures adopted by different researchers have been discussed. Different low-cost materials used are sawdust, fruit and vegetable wastes, soil, minerals, etc. The modifying agents are heat, acids, bases, and other chemicals. Nevertheless, most of the studies are limited to batch tests only. Future research should be carried out on the extension of batch tests to column study for the large-scale treatment of contaminated water, and the cost of modification procedures and their impact on the environment should also be assessed.
Rapid removal of heavy metal ions from aqueous solutions by low cost adsorbents
