Current progress in sorptive eradication of microplastics from aqueous media: a review

Abstract

Microplastic (MP) pollution has emerged as a pressing planetary issue, necessitating immediate attention from scientists, engineers, and industrialists. Owing to their synthetic and non-degradable nature, coupled with their diminutive sizes, MPs can easily infiltrate biological systems through inhalation, consumption, or ingestion. Considering the toxicological impacts of MPs on humans and aquatic biota, scientific communities are devising innovative technological solutions to eliminate MPs from contaminated water. Recent removal contrivances employing cutting-edge phenomenal approaches include filtration, adsorption, electrocoagulation, phytoremediation, phycoremediation, etc. Of these, adsorption stands out as a potential contender because of its simple operation, greater proficiency, reduced initial investment cost, low energy consumption, minimal sludge generation, and availability of precursor materials for sorbent development. To date, the potential of the adsorption process has not been comprehensively reviewed for the removal of MPs from aqueous media. Therefore, the current review aims to analyze recent technological advancements in developing promising sorbents and examine their efficacies for eradicating MPs. This study provides an in-depth assessment of distinct adsorbents, the adsorption mechanism, parameters impacting the mechanism, process modelling, and reusability assessment of sorbents. Furthermore, this review deciphers the challenges associated with the market penetration of produced adsorbents in expediting the transition from laboratory to commercial-scale applications. A bibliometric analysis is conducted to bridge existing knowledge gaps and previous studies to help the scientific community develop improved adsorption-based solutions. Hence, this review underscores the sustainability of adsorption-based methods, paving the way for the next-generation to adopt competent, sustainable and economical adsorbents for efficient expulsion of MPs from water.