Insight into adsorbents for surfactants removal: A review

Wastewater treatment has an important responsibility to react to changing consumer and industrial-produced wastes that pose environmental challenges. Surfactants are one of these emerging contaminants. They are of interest because of their increasingly ubiquitous domestic and industrial use and the difficulty their presence causes traditional treatment. Compared with other treatment technologies, adsorption is a promising approach due to its low cost and environmental friendliness. This paper reviews the hazards of surfactants, the removal effect and mechanism of surfactants by conventional activated carbon, mineral materials, Chitosan-based materials, carbon materials and agricultural waste, and also summarizes the classification of adsorbent regeneration. Finally, future perspectives on surfactants removal and exploitation of adsorbent are presented. Through a comprehensive review, we expect that this review will help the reader to more rationally select the appropriate adsorbent based on the removal mechanism.