Status Quo and Prospect of Research on Production of Low-Cost Adsorbents with Agricultural Byproducts

Being a major agricultural country in the world, China produces hundreds of millions of tons of agricultural byproducts annually, of which, however, only approximately 60%, significantly lower than that in developed countries, are used. There is still much room for exploiting the resources of agro-based byproducts. A large volume of studies have been done focusing on recycling of agro-based byproducts. Using agricultural byproducts to produce low-cost bioadsorbents intended for wastewater treatment is one topic, and moreover a promising one, which will not only offer a new approach to the exploitingion of the resources offor agricultural byproducts, but also supply with a new kind of low-cost bioabsorbent for wastewater treatment. A review of the researches in this field is presented, introducing 3 ways to produce absorbents with agricultural byproducts. i.e. crude agricultural-byproduct-based absorbents, chemically modified absorbents and physically modified absorbents, summarizing problems faced in the researches and discussing prospects of future researches.