Environmental Research

Volume 212, Part B, September 2022, 113248

Review article
Adsorption of pollutants in wastewater via
biosorbents, nanoparticles and magnetic
biosorbents: A review
Author links open overlay panelGuat Teng Tee , Xie Yuen Gok , Wai
a a

Fen Yong a b

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Highlights
 •
Summarized latest 5 years papers. .
 •
Modification of biosorbents via acid, base and salt activation. .
 •
Comparison of biosorbents and magnetic biosorbents. .
 •
Adsorption mechanism of magnetic biosorbents towards dyes, heavy
metals and PAHs. .
 •
Effect of adsorbent dosage, pH and initial concentration on adsorption
performance. .

Abstract
Adsorption has gained much attention as one of the efficient
approaches to remediate the contaminants in wastewater. Herein, this
critical review focuses on the preparation, modification, application
and regeneration of the biosorbents, nanoparticles and magnetic
biosorbents for the wastewater treatment in recent 5 years (2017–
2021). Among these materials, the development of magnetic
biosorbents is attractive owing to their variable active sites, high
specific surface area, easy separation and low cost. To improve the
adsorption performance of biosorbents, the chemical activations such
as acid, alkali and salt activations of biosorbents are discussed. In
general, the oxidation reaction in acid, alkali and salt activations
increases the porosity of biosorbents. The surface characteristics,
surface chemistry of the biosorbents and magnetic biosorbents such
as electrostatic interaction, π-π interaction and hydrogen bonding are
highlighted. Ionic compounds are separated through ion exchange,
surface charge and electrostatic interactions while the organic
pollutants are removed via hydrophobicity, π-π interactions and
hydrogen bonding. The effect of solution pH, adsorbent dosage, initial
concentration of pollutants, adsorption duration and temperature on
the adsorption capacity, and removal efficiency are discussed.
Generally, an increase in adsorbent dosage resulted in a decrease in
adsorption capacity due to the excessive active sites. On the other
hand, a higher initial concentration or an increase in contact time of
adsorbent increased the driving force, subsequently enhancing the
adsorption capacity. Finally, this review will be concluded with a
summary, challenges and future outlook of magnetic biosorbents. It is
anticipated that this review will provide insights into engineering
advanced and suitable materials to achieve cost-effective and
scalable adsorbents for practical and sustainable environmental
remediation.
Introduction
Water contamination is an emerging global environmental issue that
causes adverse effects on human health and harmful impacts on the
environment. Heavy metal, dye molecules and toxic compounds
released from industrial wastewater are the major pollutants. The
presence of heavy metals such as cadmium (Cd) and Arsenic (As) in
mangrove snail and surface sediment from Peninsular Malaysia
exceeded the threshold limit (Cheng and Yap, 2015). Besides, the
high biological and photodegradation resistance of dyes increase the
challenge in removing them (El-Gamal et al., 2015). The consumption
of toxic and mutagenic dyes will lead to severe health issues such as
damage to the liver and kidney, as well as the central nervous and
reproductive system (Mtshatsheni et al., 2019). Polycyclic aromatic
hydrocarbons (PAHs) consist of aromatic rings that increase the
difficulties of the remediation process. Generally, the dense �-
� electrons on aromatic rings are highly resistant to nucleophilic
attack (Patel et al., 2020). These pollutants contaminate water
sources and thus cause water scarcity. Hence, remediation is required
to improve the water quality.
According to United Nations World Water Development Report in
2020, around 4 billion people are facing severe physical water scarcity
for at least one month in a year (Plotnykove et al., 2020). It is
projected to reach around 9.4 to 10.2 billion people in 2050 owing to
the increasing world population (Boretti and Rosa, 2019). Besides,
around 1 million animal and plant species are facing extinction,
especially freshwater species. In Malaysia, 53% of the rivers were
classified as slightly polluted or polluted (Lee Goi, 2020). Hence,
various remediation strategies have been developed to remove the
contaminants from wastewater including membrane filtration (Chew
and Yong, 2021; Jiang et al., 2021; Lau and Yong, 2021; Liao et al.,
2018; Lu et al., 2021), electrochemical method and precipitation (Patel
et al., 2020). Membrane filtration reduces the energy requirement and
capital cost of wastewater treatment. However, the fouling issues of
membrane remain challenging (Obotey Ezugbe and Rathilal, 2020).
For electrochemical method, the process is robust, easy operation and
quick response to wastewater fluctuations (Muddemann et al., 2019).
Nevertheless, this method reduces the value of wastes such as heavy
metals by precipitating them into sludge (Liu et al., 2019a). Adsorption
has been widely applied in wastewater treatment because of its
environmentally benign, low cost and efficiency (Ali and Gupta, 2006).
An ideal adsorbent with high adsorptive performance, less negative
impact on the environment and easy separation from wastewater is
required.
Recently, magnetic biosorbents have gained increasing attention as
promising adsorbents for pollutants removal in wastewater treatment.
Biosorbents are derived from biomass materials and combined metal
or metal oxide nanoparticles with magnetic properties (Hassan et al.,
2020). Basically, the biomass undergoes pyrolysis to produce biochar.
Biochar is a carbon-rich material and acts as a biosorbent. The
properties of biochar are highly dependent on the synthesis
parameters such as pyrolysis temperature, pyrolysis duration and type
of plant residues (Shen et al., 2019; Zhao et al., 2018). Furthermore,
the raw biosorbents are modified by chemical functionalization such
as acid and base activations on the surface. The additional functional
groups present on the surface of the biosorbents tend to bond with
other elements which act as biosorption sites, leading to a significant
improvement in adsorption capacity (Ademiluyi and David-West, 2012;
Pezoti et al., 2016). However, biosorbents have limited removal
efficiency of pollutants at trace levels (Ali, 2012).
Metal nanoparticles such as iron (Fe), copper (Cu), titanium (Ti) or
zinc (Zn) are commonly used in the synthesis of magnetic biosorbents
in the form of nitrates, carbonate, oxide or sulfate such as iron (III)
oxide (Fe O ) (Nguyen et al., 2020), iron (III) chloride (FeCl ) (Adeogun
3 4 3

et al., 2019a) and zero-valent iron (ZVI) (Kumar et al., 2016). Besides,
adsorbents in nanosize possess high adsorption capacity due to high
surface area (Ayub et al., 2020). Nevertheless, metal or metal oxides
nanoparticles with reduced particle sizes tend to aggregate and
agglomerate due to weak van der Waals forces and high surface free
energy (Ashraf et al., 2018). The agglomeration of nanoparticles
reduces surface area and deteriorates the mechanical properties of
nanoparticles which is undesired in the adsorption process. Hence,
magnetic biosorbents with synergistic effects have been prepared by
combining the biosorbents and metal or metal oxides nanoparticles.
The magnetic properties possessed by the metal or metal oxides
nanoparticles enhance the adsorption capacity and ease the
separation from the reaction medium. Besides, a sustainable
carbonaceous material developed from plant-based biomass can
improve the dispersion and reusability of metal nanoparticles. The
chemical treated biosorbents could be functionalized with multiple
surface functional groups such as hydroxyl (-OH), carbonyl (-C=O),
carboxyl (-COOH) or sulfhydryl (-SH) groups which act as anchoring
sites for the growth of metal nanoparticles (Shen et al., 2010) and
improve the stability of adsorbents (Hassan et al., 2020).
Based on some recent reviews, there is a lack of information on the
relationship between the structure and property of biosorbents. To
curb this deficiency, this review provides a detailed insight into the
surface characteristics of magnetic biosorbents which dominates the
adsorption performance. The development of magnetic nanoparticles
and biosorbents for the removal of contaminants in wastewater
including heavy metal ions, dye molecules and polycyclic aromatic
hydrocarbons (PAHs) in recent 5 years (2017–2021) will be
summarized. Besides, the main factors affecting the adsorption
capacity such as pH of the environment, adsorbent dosage and initial
concentration of pollutants will be discussed. The modification method
which affects the structure of biosorbents and adsorption mechanism
will be highlighted. Furthermore, the separation and regeneration of
magnetic biosorbents will also be included. Lastly, we will conclude it
with major challenges and future perspectives on magnetic
biosorbents.

Section snippets
Biomass derived adsorbents
Carbonaneous materials have been widely used as adsorbents in
water remediation because of their large specific surface area and
high chemical stability (Chen et al., 2010). For example, activated
carbons are produced from non-renewable sources including coal and
petroleum (Yahya et al., 2018) and nanosized carbons (e.g., carbon
nanotube and graphene) (Guo et al., 2010; Jasper et al., 2010).
However, the generation and regeneration of activated carbon are
energy- and cost-intensive (Yahya et

Magnetic nanoparticles adsorbents

One of the challenges in adsorbents or biosorbents is the difficulty to
regenerate from wastewater after the adsorption process. To
overcome this challenge, researchers introduced magnetic
nanoparticles into the biosorbents to ease the separation process. Fig.
1. (a) Shows four categories of metallic nanoparticles namely noble
metal nanoparticles, magnetic nanoparticles, semiconductor
nanoparticles and metallic chalcogenides. Magnetic nanoparticles
adsorbents possess unique characteristics

Magnetic biosorbents
The properties of magnetic biosorbents highly rely on the types of
biomass, impregnated metal nanoparticles and synthesis methods.
The variations in the elemental compositions of biomass determine
the adsorption performance of magnetic biosorbents (Liu et al., 2017).
In a study, silicon-rich coconut fiber biochar which exhibited high
adsorption capacity was developed due to the presence of silicates
groups that dominated the sorption sites of Pb(II) ions (Li et al.,
2019b).

Conclusion
Magnetic biosorbents exhibited an increasing potential in the
remediation of organic and inorganic pollutants in wastewater due to
their high adsorptive performance. Besides, the magnetic biosorbents
possess regeneration and reusability properties without compromising
their adsorption capacity. An increased number of developing
magnetic biosorbents with enhanced properties have been observed.
This review summarized the synthesis and modification of
biosorbents, nanoparticles and magnetic
Future outlook and challenges
Although many strategies have been developed for improving the
properties of magnetic biosorbents, some areas are worth further
investigation. Generally, the magnetic nanoparticles tend to self-
associate into micro-scale aggregates. To promote uniform dispersion
and the growth of magnetic nanoparticles, advanced methods other
than the sonication method and the addition of polymer stabilizers
could be studied. A simple and facile method is important to
synthesize uniformly dispersed magnetic

Author contributions statement

Guat Teng Tee: Investigation, Writing – original draft, Visualization,
Validation.; Xie Yuen Gok: Conceptualization, Writing – review &
editing, Visualization.; Wai Fen Yong: Conceptualization, Resources,
Writing – review & editing, Supervision, Project administration.

Declaration of competing interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial
interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to
influence the work reported in this paper.

Acknowledgements
The authors would like to acknowledge the financial support provided
by Hengyuan International Sdn. Bhd. (grant number: EENG/0003)
and Xiamen University Malaysia Research Fund (grant
number: XMUMRF/2021-C8/IENG/0042).