Alfin Kurniawan, Suryadi Ismadji, Felycia Edi Soetaredjo, Aning Ayucitra
Adsorption is a cost-effective, simple, reliable and environmentally benign process for the elimination of various toxic pollutants from water and wastewater. The selection of the adsorbing solids (or adsorbents) crucially determines the effectiveness and operating costs of the sorption processes. In recent years, clays and clay minerals have been attracting increasing attention from the scientific research communities and industries alike for the remediation of natural environments polluted by heavy metal ions. Clays and clay minerals are promising engineered materials with respect to their abundant availability, cheapness, high cation exchange capacity (CEC) and excellent chemical and mechanical stability. This chapter of book provides up-to-date information focusing on the adsorptive removal of various natural clays and clay minerals and their modified forms towards heavy metal ions. The important features of structural properties and surface chemical nature of the solid adsorbent on the capacitive removal of metal cations is discussed in detail. Furthermore, the future perspective of clay-based adsorption systems for industrial-scale wastewater treatment is described from technical and economic points of view. © The Royal Society of Chemistry 2015. All rights reserved.
Department of Chemical Engineering, Widya Mandala Surabaya Catholic University, Kalijudan 37, Surabaya, 60114, Indonesia