In the last time, the use of natural additives that are biocompatible, are biodegradable, have low toxicity and are from renewable resources attracted attention of many researchers due to their high ability to retain different pollutants from wastewaters. In this context, there are many research studies that highlight the biosorbent ability of chitosan and their composites for the pollutants from wastewaters such as heavy metal ions, organochloride pesticides, suspended solids, turbidity, organic oxidised substances, fatty and oil impurities or textile wastewater dyes. Furthermore, the increase of adsorption ability of chitosan by chemical modifications leading to the formation of chitosan derivatives, grafting chitosan and chitosan composites gained much attention, being extensively studied and widely reported in the literature. In this chapter the research studies regarding the chitosan application in wastewater treatments as well as the preliminary results on its chemical modification to obtain and utilisation of zeolite-chitosan composites in adsorption of organic pollutants from industrial wastewaters are presented.
Part of the book: Biological Activities and Application of Marine Polysaccharides