ABSTRACT
Mercury pollution has turned one of the most severe environmental problems due to its persistence in nature and toxicity to all forms of life. Many techniques exist to
remove mercury but such processes have their own demerits. To find out an effective technology for removal of mercury to the desired level is now the main concern of the researchers. Among the various existing effluent treatment technologies, adsorption process is the most popular and effective one practiced throughout the world and activated carbon has been proven as the most suitable adsorbent. But the use of activated carbon is restricted due its high cost. Nowadays researches are going on to find out economical as well as efficient adsorbent prepared from waste materials. This chapter presents several investigations carried out to prepare adsorbent from different types of waste materials to remove mercury from effluent as well as from drinking water. Though quite a few adsorbent have shown high adsorptive capacity still some of them have a number of shortcomings. It is evident from the review that many waste materials have scope to be an effective precursor for preparation of adsorbent for removal of mercury.
