Metal Organic Frameworks to Remove Arsenic Adsorption from Wastewater

Water is an integral part of life on earth. Rapid industrialization, urbanization, and population explosion have all contributed to the pollution of ground and surface water with, among other things, heavy metals. This has led to an acute shortage of clean drinking water. Arsenic is one of the most toxic heavy metals found in water, posing a serious threat to the environment, human beings, and aquatic life. Over the years, a considerable amount of research has been directed toward the elimination of arsenic from water via sustainable methodologies. Metal organic frameworks are a class of materials possessing exceptional features like chemical stability, high porosity, multiple functional groups, and large surface areas. These properties can be effectively channelized to make metal organic frameworks excellent adsorbents for the removal of arsenic from contaminated water and make it drinkable. We have reviewed herein, the problems of heavy metal contamination, specifically the different forms of arsenic that pollute water. The importance of metal organic frameworks and the progress made in the synthesis of materials having a metal oxide framework have been discussed. Significant properties like adsorption and mechanistic aspects of adsorption through metal organic frameworks have been described. Furthermore, the characterization of the electronic and geometric aspects of metal organic frameworks using density functional theory has been reviewed. Insight into proper scaling up and development of metal organic frameworks for practical applications have also been suggested.