Title:Chitosan Biopolymer As Sustainable Material For Chromium Removal From Waste Water Bodies
Volume: 18
Issue: 2
Author(s): Seema Lal and Shilpi Bhatnagar*
Affiliation:
- Department of Chemistry, Deshbandhu College, Kalkaji, University of Delhi, New Delhi- 110019, India
Keywords:
Waste water tratment, adsorption, chitosan, heavy metals, chromium, sustainable materials.
Abstract: Rapid industrialization by humans is a dominant source of waste materials
in water bodies and has created serious environmental problems, which has made the
survival of life forms on land as well as in water bodies a challenge. Water gets contaminated
by human waste, domestic sewage, wastewater discharges and effluents
from industrial sites such as factories, refineries, and mines, accidental spills of chemicals,
agricultural run-off, toxic metals and radioactive materials. The toxic nonbiodegradable
chemicals in industrial waste are treated by various methods such as
adsorption, coagulation, ozonation, membrane filtration, ion exchange, chemical oxidation
and biological treatments. Biopolymers such as cellulose, chitosan, alginate and
keratin proteins are the most sustainable, renewable and biocompatible polymers
commonly used for wastewater purification. Chromium VI is one of the serious aquatic
pollutants released as effluent from various industries and is considered a potentially
toxic metal ion for humans and aquatic life. In the past decades, various conventional
methods with their own merits and demerits have been explored for Cr decontamination
from wastewater bodies. The present study highlights the application of
Chitosan biopolymer as an effective and sustainable material for efficiently removing
Cr VI metal ions from wastewater bodies.
