Environmental sustainability through adsorption: A review of chitosan's potential in dye pollution remediation

Abstract

Globalization, growing population, and advancements in technology have catapulted the pollution issue to be a serious threat to the existence of most living beings on Earth. Consequently, sustainability has emerged as a key concern for policymakers worldwide. On a global basis, the release of several toxicants into the environment due to industrialization and community expansion is of serious concern. Enhanced and detrimental pollution is caused by dye, and this is scary as they are harmful, cannot be degraded easily, and they accumulate. To effectively mitigate the formation of such dyes in the water bodies, among several alternate pathways, biochemical adsorption has been thoroughly researched for its practical utility. Given its promising attributes, such as economic feasibility, accessibility, and compliance with environmental standards, this review article fosters the integration of three key dimensions in the mentioned research sub-theme. These refer to (a) systematic evaluation of various chitosan MOF composites with the MOF structures such as ZIF, UIO-66, MIL, and HKUST MOFs and their hybrid forms such as MOF-membranes, MOF-sponges, gels that were tailored for the dye capture purpose; (b) systematic assessment of the synthesis procedures and reaction mechanisms involved in chitosan MOF and other composite derivatives (hybrid materials) for the removal of toxic dyes from wastewater solutions and (3) assessment of the desorption efficiency, eluting solution efficacy and reusability of the chitosan MOF and other derivatives. Accordingly, future research directions have also been presented in the article for the development of efficient and scalable adsorption-based capture technologies for pollution-free environment realization.