Water Treatment by Adsorption Columns: Evaluation at Ground Level

Water is the most important and essential component of earth's ecosystem, playing a vital role in the proper functioning of flora and fauna. But water resources are contaminating continuously. The whole world may be in great water scarcity in the coming few decades. Among many water treatment methods, adsorption is considered to be one of the best. Many articles describe adsorption applications for water treatment in batch mode. Only few works report laboratory, pilot and commercial applications of adsorption technology. This review is a critical evaluation of the contribution of adsorption technology at laboratory, pilot and process scales. Water treatment, through column operations, has been divided into two parts: removal of (i) inorganic and (ii) organic pollutants. Attempts have been made to evaluate the application of adsorption columns at the ground level. Besides, efforts have also been made to emphasize the importance of adsorption columns at commercial levels to tackle water treatment problems in the future.