Water Contamination

Water is the most essential for the survival of living organisms. The availability of clean water
for humans has become a global crisis due to its continuous contamination and population
growth (Imran 2012), (Hemavathy et. al., 2019). About 71% of earth’s surface is covered with
water. About 97.3% of total water is present in oceans and only 2.7% is drinkable. About 2.04%
of drinkable water is found in glaciers and ice caps, 0.61% is present as groundwater. About
1,02,960.58 billion acre-feet (1.0 acre-foot = 435,600 cubic feet) is present in rivers, lakes and
other sources (Iqbal and Gupta, 2009).

Approximately 33% of people in the world are consuming water from underground sources for
drinking (Nickson et al., 2005). About 1,200 million people do not have excess to clean water
and about 2,600 million people do not have fundamental sanitation facilities (Kurniawan et al.,
2012). According to WHO, about 1.6 million people die annually due to water-borne diseases
such as diarrhea, and about 90% of these deaths are in children below the age of 5 years (Joseph
et al., 2019). Rapid growth in industrialization, modernization, growing civilizations, growing
populations, agricultural pesticides, and insecticides, geological changes and other
environmental issues have been causing water contamination (Anastopoulos et al., 2019). The
discharge of metallic contaminated industrial effluents into environmental aqueous bodies is a
potential threat to humans, animals, and plants due to its non-biodegradable nature unlike the
organic pollutants (Islam et al., 2012), (Awual and Hasan, 2015).

Excess intake of toxic metal ions through the food chain and/or other means causes serious
health problems by interacting with nitrogen, sulfur and oxygen of proteins and replacement of
metal ions from certain enzymes resulting in malfunctioning or cells destroying (Siyal et al.,
2014). In developed countries, it is legislated that the metal-contaminated industrial effluents
must be treated prior to their discharge into water bodies (Sari et al., 2007).

Industrial effluent discharge causes Ni(II) ions contamination in environmental aquatic bodies.
According to the United states environmental protection agency (US-EPA), the maximum
allowable concentration of Ni(II) ions in drinking water is 0.1 mg L –1 (Malkoc and Nuhoglu,
2005), exceeding this limit, it causes health problems such as gastrointestinal distress,
restlessness, nausea, vomiting, migraine, chest tightness, chest pain, breathlessness, hacking
cough, shortness of breath, weakness, cyanosis dermatitis, fibrosis and some carcinogenic
diseases including kidney failure and cancers in lungs, nose, and bones (Hasar, 2003),( Meena et
al., 2005).

Several methods based on coagulation, co-precipitation, ion exchange, reverse osmosis, solvent
extraction, and adsorption have been developed for water treatment (Bhatnagar and Sillanpää,
2010). Among these, adsorption is the most recommended in physicochemical technologies
because of least solvent consumption, cost-effective, operational ease, reusability of adsorbents
and high efficiency of adsorbents for adsorbate (Awual et al., 2015). Agricultural based
materials contain cellulose and lignin which comprise of a different functional group such as
aldehydes, alcohols, ketones, carboxylic acids, ether, and phenols. Agricultural waste-based
adsorbents containing hydroxyl and carboxyl groups are possessing strong ability to bind with
metal ions (Demirbas, 2008).
References.

Anastopoulos, I., Pashalidis, I., Hosseini-Bandegharaei, A., Giannakoudakis, D. A., Robalds, A.,

Usman, M., … Lima, É. C. (2019). Agricultural biomass/waste as adsorbents for toxic

metal decontamination of aqueous solutions. Journal of Molecular Liquids, 295(111684),

111684.

Awual, M. R., & Hasan, M. M. (2015). Colorimetric detection and removal of copper(II) ions

from wastewater samples using tailor-made composite adsorbent. Sensors and Actuators.

B, Chemical, 206, 692–700.

Awual, M. R., Eldesoky, G. E., Yaita, T., Naushad, M., Shiwaku, H., AlOthman, Z. A., &

Suzuki, S. (2015). Schiff based ligand containing nano-composite adsorbent for optical

copper(II) ions removal from aqueous solutions. Chemical Engineering Journal

(Lausanne, Switzerland: 1996), 279, 639–647.

Bhatnagar, A., & Sillanpää, M. (2010). Utilization of agro-industrial and municipal waste

materials as potential adsorbents for water treatment—A review. Chemical Engineering

Journal (Lausanne, Switzerland: 1996), 157(2–3), 277–296.

Demirbas, A. (2008). Heavy metal adsorption onto agro-based waste materials: a

review. Journal of Hazardous Materials, 157(2–3), 220–229.

Hasar, H. (2003). Adsorption of nickel(II) from aqueous solution onto activated carbon prepared

from almond husk. Journal of Hazardous Materials, 97(1–3), 49–57.

Hemavathy, R. R. V., Kumar, P. S., Suganya, S., Swetha, V., & Varjani, S. J. (2019). Modelling

on the removal of toxic metal ions from aquatic system by different surface modified

Cassia fistula seeds. Bioresource Technology, 281, 1–9.

Imran, A. (2012). New generation adsorbents for water treatment. Chemical Reviews, 112(10),

5073-5091

Iqbal, M. A., & Gupta, S. G. (2009). Studies on Heavy Metal Ion Pollution of Ground Water

Sources as an Effect of Municipal Solid Waste Dumping. African Journal of Basic &

Applied Sciences, 1(5–6), 117–122,.

Islam, A., Ahmad, A., & Laskar, M. A. (2012). Characterization of a chelating resin

functionalized via azo spacer and its analytical applicability for the determination of trace

metal ions in real matrices. Journal of Applied Polymer Science, 123(6), 3448–3458.

Joseph, L., Jun, B.-M., Flora, J. R. V., Park, C. M., & Yoon, Y. (2019). Removal of heavy metals

from water sources in the developing world using low-cost materials: A

review. Chemosphere, 229, 142–159.

Kurniawan, T. A., Sillanpää, M. E. T., & Sillanpää, M. (2012). Nanoadsorbents for remediation

of aquatic environment: Local and practical solutions for global water pollution

problems. Critical Reviews in Environmental Science and Technology, 42(12), 1233–

1295.

Malkoc, E., & Nuhoglu, Y. (2005). Investigations of nickel(II) removal from aqueous solutions

using tea factory waste. Journal of Hazardous Materials, 127(1–3), 120–128.

Meena, A. K., Mishra, G. K., Rai, P. K., Rajagopal, C., & Nagar, P. N. (2005). Removal of

heavy metal ions from aqueous solutions using carbon aerogel as an adsorbent. Journal

of Hazardous Materials, 122(1–2), 161–170.

Nickson, R. T., McArthur, J. M., Shrestha, B., Kyaw-Myint, T. O., & Lowry, D. (2005). Arsenic

and other drinking water quality issues, Muzaffargarh District, Pakistan. Applied

Geochemistry: Journal of the International Association of Geochemistry and

Cosmochemistry, 20(1), 55–68.

Sari, A., Tuzen, M., Citak, D., & Soylak, M. (2007). Equilibrium, kinetic and thermodynamic

studies of adsorption of Pb(II) from aqueous solution onto Turkish kaolinite

clay. Journal of Hazardous Materials, 149(2), 283–291.

Siyal, A. N., Memon, S. Q., Elçi̇ , A., Di̇ vri̇ kli̇ , Ü., Khuhawar, M. Y., & Elçi̇ , L. (2014).

Development of 2-acetylpyridine-4-phenyl-3-thiosemicarbazone functionalized

polymeric resin for the preconcentration of metal ions prior to their ultratrace

determinations by MIS-FAAS. Turkish Journal of Chemistry, 38, 553–567.