ABSTRACT
Water is an essential limited resource that plays a vital role in the proper functioning of the society. That is why there are huge consequences in regions with rapid industrialization and population growth, such as large cities, when a variety of inorganic and organic compounds are dumped into rivers, lakes, and the sewage system. Some of these pollutants are highly toxic and carcinogenic, while some have long residence times in the environment. Toxic metals include lead, zinc, copper, mercury, chromium, cadmium, and arsenic. Radioactive metals, such as uranium, are also found. For water treatm ent, among other technologies, adsorption has becom e widely used because it is relatively a less expensive technique. Bionanocomposites are a new kind of m aterial that have recently
been receiving a lot of attention because they are nontoxic, regenerable, easily recoverable from filters, relatively cheap, and a readily available technology for adsorption of metal ions. In this chapter we describe the state-of-art techniques for the synthesis of several bionanocomposites (chitosan-based nanocomposites, alginate, xanthan-gum, carboxymethylcellulose, pectin, starch, etc.) and their application as adsorption m aterials for the removal of heavy metal ions from wastewater.
