Eliminating Heavy Metals from Water with Nano-Sheet Minerals as Adsorbents

Heavy metals usually referred to those with atomic weights ranging from 63.5 to 200.6. Because of natural-mineral dissolution and human activities such as mining, pesticides, fertilizer, metal planting and batteries manufacture, etc., these heavy metals, including zinc, copper, mercury, lead, cadmium and chromium have been excessively released into water courses, like underground water, lake and river, etc. The ingestion of the heavy metals-contaminated water would raise serious health problems to human beings even at a low concentration. For instance, lead can bring human beings about barrier to the normal function of kidney, liver and reproductive system, while zinc can cause stomach cramps, skin irritations, vomiting and anemia. Mercury is a horrible neurotoxin that may result in damages to the central nervous system, dysfunction of pulmonary and kidney, chest and dyspnea. Chromium (VI) has been proved can cause many diseases ranging from general skin irritation to severe lung carcinoma. Accordingly, the World Health Organization announced the maximum contaminant levels (MCL) for the heavy metals in drinking water. There are numerous processes for eliminating heavy metals from water in order to provide citizens safe drinking water, including precipitation, adsorption, ion exchange, membrane separation and biological treatment, etc. Adsorption is considered as a potential process for deeply removing heavy metals, in which the selection of adsorbents plays a predominant role.Nano-sheet minerals as the adsorbents are currently the hottest researches in the field. They are obtained from layered minerals, such as montmorillonite, graphite and molybdenite, through the processing of intercalation, electrochemical and mechanical exfoliation, etc. Nano-sheet minerals are featured by their large specific surface area, relatively low costs and active adsorbing sites, leading to be effective and potential adsorbents for heavy metals removal from water.Montmorillonite was usu