State of the art for the biosorption process--a review

Abstract

In recent years, biosorption process has become an economic and eco-friendly alternative treatment technology in the water and wastewater industry. In this light, a number of biosorbents were developed and are successfully employed for treating various pollutants including metals, dyes, phenols, fluoride, and pharmaceuticals in solutions (aqueous/oil). However, still there are few technical barriers in the biosorption process that impede its commercialization and thus to overcome these problems there has been a steadily growing interest in this research field. This resulted in large numbers of publications and patents each year. This review reports the state of the art in biosorption research. In this review, we provide a compendium of know-how in laboratory methodology, mathematical modeling of equilibrium and kinetics, identification of the biosorption mechanism. Various mathematical models of biosorption were discussed: the process in packed-bed column arrangement, as well as by suspended biomass. Particular attention was paid to patents in biosorption and pilot-scale systems. In addition, we provided future aspects in biosorption research.

Fig. 1

General sourcing scheme for different kinds of biosorbents used in biosorption process

Fig. 2

Techniques used in the identification of mechanism of biosorption

Fig. 3

SEM images of natural and enriched with Cr(III) biomass of Ulva prolifera (SEM, Leo Zeiss 435) [59]

Fig. 4

General scheme for experiments on kinetics of biosorption

Fig. 5

General scheme for experiments on equilibrium of biosorption

Fig. 6

Number of papers on biosorption with a “biosorption” word in the topic, b different “key words” in the topic, c different “key words” in the topic: type of sorbate, d different “key words” in the topic: type of biosorbent, e different “key words” in the topic: kind of biosorption process (source: Web of Knowledge)

Fig. 6

Number of papers on biosorption with a “biosorption” word in the topic, b different “key words” in the topic, c different “key words” in the topic: type of sorbate, d different “key words” in the topic: type of biosorbent, e different “key words” in the topic: kind of biosorption process (source: Web of Knowledge)