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Review
. 2023 Jul 21;15(14):3114.
doi: 10.3390/polym15143114.

Starch-Based Polymer Materials as Advanced Adsorbents for Sustainable Water Treatment: Current Status, Challenges, and Future Perspectives

Pui San Khoo  1 , R A Ilyas  1   2   3   4 , M N A Uda  4   5 , Shukur Abu Hassan  1   6 , A H Nordin  2 , A S Norfarhana  2 , N H Ab Hamid  2 , M S A Rani  3   7 , Hairul Abral  8   9 , M N F Norrrahim  10 , V F Knight  10 , Chuan Li Lee  3 , S Ayu Rafiqah  3
Affiliations
Review

Starch-Based Polymer Materials as Advanced Adsorbents for Sustainable Water Treatment: Current Status, Challenges, and Future Perspectives

Pui San Khoo et al. Polymers (Basel). .

Abstract

Over the past three decades, chemical and biological water contamination has become a major concern, particularly in the industrialized world. Heavy metals, aromatic compounds, and dyes are among the harmful substances that contribute to water pollution, which jeopardies the human health. For this reason, it is of the utmost importance to locate methods for the cleanup of wastewater that are not genuinely effective. Owing to its non-toxicity, biodegradability, and biocompatibility, starch is a naturally occurring polysaccharide that scientists are looking into as a possible environmentally friendly material for sustainable water remediation. Starch could exhibit significant adsorption capabilities towards pollutants with the substitution of amide, amino, carboxyl, and other functional groups for hydroxyl groups. Starch derivatives may effectively remove contaminants such as oil, organic solvents, pesticides, heavy metals, dyes, and pharmaceutical pollutants by employing adsorption techniques at a rate greater than 90%. The maximal adsorption capacities of starch-based adsorbents for oil and organic solvents, pesticides, heavy metal ions, dyes, and pharmaceuticals are 13,000, 66, 2000, 25,000, and 782 mg/g, respectively. Although starch-based adsorbents have demonstrated a promising future for environmental wastewater treatment, additional research is required to optimize the technique before the starch-based adsorbent can be used in large-scale in situ wastewater treatment.

Keywords: adsorbent; dye; heavy metals; micropollutants; oil; organic solvents; pesticides; pharmaceutical pollutants; starch; wastewater treatment.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
(a) Conventional adsorbents and (b) non-conventional adsorbents for removal of pollutants from wastewaters [44].
Figure 1
Figure 1
(a) Conventional adsorbents and (b) non-conventional adsorbents for removal of pollutants from wastewaters [44].
Figure 2
Figure 2
Chemical structure of starch composed of glucose molecules [108].
Figure 3
Figure 3
Chemical structure of amylose.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Chemical structure of amylopectin.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Application of superhydrophobic and magnetic starch-based adsorbent to remove oil [141].
Figure 6
Figure 6
Application of SNPs for removing oil [147].
Figure 7
Figure 7
Application of mesoporous ACS to remove pesticides [86].
Figure 8
Figure 8
(a) The adsorption of heavy metals from wastewater using a starch-based hydrogel material and (b) Changes in structure as a result of external stimuli such as variations in pH and temperature [160].
Figure 9
Figure 9
Effects of increased pH towards the adsorption process of CMS-SS, CMS, SS, and ST for cationic dye removal [161].
Figure 10
Figure 10
STAHn equilibrium adsorption capability for MB [184]. Values followed by the same letters are not significantly different at p ≤ 0.05.
Figure 11
Figure 11
Recovery measurement of NSAIDs after every 5 reuse cycles of S-Mg/Al LDHs [196].
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Grants and funding

This research was funded by Universiti Teknologi Malaysia for the project “The impact of Malaysian bamboos’ chemical and fibre characteristics on their pulp and paper properties”, grant number PY/2022/02318—Q.J130000.3851.21H99. The research was carried out under the programme Research Excellence Consortium (JPT (BPKI) 1000/016/018/25 (57)), provided by the Ministry of Higher Education Malaysia (MOHE).

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