Revalorization of Agro-Food Residues as Bioadsorbents for Wastewater Treatment

Resumen

Agricultural activities and food industry have increased as a consequence of the population growth in the world. Each year these activities generate a huge volume of residues as a result of farming operations (harvesting and/or pruning, etc.), processing in food industry and daily human consumption. Normally, the accumulated agricultural residues during farming operations do not have any function in the food industry. It is also common to see the collection of by-products (husks, hulls, seeds, peel, shell, skin, etc.) during the raw material transformation in the operations (washing, processing, preparing and/or packaging, etc.) which constitute the process. The agro-food residue is directly linked to daily life and has important environmental, economic, and social impacts. All these residues can be reused or revalorized (crude, modified, and carbonized) as bioadsorbents for organic and inorganic pollutants contained in wastewater.