Biomass aerogel: An emerging eco-friendly material for adsorbing pollutants in water

Water pollution has become one of the major environmental challenges due to the rapid development of industry and human activities. Heavy metals, oil, pesticides, antibiotics, and radionuclides have caused serious water pollution. Adsorption is a fast and simple method to remove these pollutants. Careful design and optimization of material properties is the key to improving adsorption efficiency. Biomass aerogels are manufactured from biomass materials, as a three-dimensional porous material, they exhibit high specific surface area, abundant active sites, low cost, and environmental friendliness. Therefore, it has attracted great attention in the field of water pollution treatment. Therefore, this paper summarizes the material types, preparation methods, adsorption properties, and adsorption mechanisms of biomass aerogels, highlights the modification methods of aerogels that adapt to the expected application of different pollutants, presents the recent progress of biomass aerogels in pollutant removal from different water bodies, and discusses the future potential of aerogels in water treatment applications.