Carbon Nanotubes as Adsorbents for Heavy Metals: Focus on Arsenic and Hydrargyrum Removal from Water

Abstract

Water is the most common and indissoluble substance in the ecosystem. It is really sad that the development of cities, people, and industries has side effects on water resources, as they are getting worse. Heavy metals are mostly found in industries; their toxicity levels are a big challenge. The work details the latest methods employed in the removal of water contaminants with heavy metals, absorption being the technique used. Following the completeness of the literature review for various sorbents that are used to remove heavy metals from wastewater, this article details one of the possible sorbents that can play this role, using carbon nanotubes as a sorbent. Through the test, it has been demonstrated that CNTs have high efficiency, yet some shortcomings have also been shown. It should, additionally, be known that further improvement of desulfurizing agents to make them better at removing heavy metals is needed. This work demonstrates that, in comparison to IL's, which must be supplied by producers, DES's, as an alternative approach, are cheaper, more accessible to use, and much safer for the environment. In other words, the method of adsorption with functionalized CNTs + DESs proved to be the most suitable. The practical diagnostics and conclusions generated from this research should prove valuable to engineers and environmental scientists involved in carbon nanotube applications in environmental remediation.