Agricultural Wastes Utilization in Water Purification

Abstract

AbstractWater is considered to be life, and therefore, availability of pure water is a must. Due to industrialization and urbanization, lot of pollutants are discharged into water, which makes water hazardous and harmful to health and environment. Most important pollutants are dyes, organic compounds, and heavy metal ions. Number of methods are being used to purify the water. Out of different methods, adsorption is found to be the most efficient and economical technique. For this method, suitable and low cost adsorbents are required. A pragmatic shift is ongoing in waste material management and wastewater treatment technology due to the large amount of waste production worldwide and the necessity for cheap adsorbents to reduce wastewater treatment costs. A number of agro-industrial wastes and chemically modified wastes are being used as adsorbents for the removal of organic pollutants (dyes and organic compounds) and inorganic pollutants (heavy metals and different ions) from wastewater. Removal efficiencies by chemically modified agro-industrial wastes are found much higher as compared to raw wastes because they have higher surface area and porosity. In this chapter, different agricultural wastes and derived products from agricultural wastes (organic compounds, inorganic compounds, composites, or nanomaterials) have been discussed for decontamination of different pollutants from wastewater. Effect of different parameters on removal efficiency has been described. Adsorption isotherm models and kinetic models have been discussed. Process of desorption and reuse is also pointed out.