A comprehensive guide for characterization of adsorbent materials

Given the great relevance that adsorption processes have for many applications, especially for the water and wastewater treatment, the development and improvement adsorbent materials is a key research topic. When a new adsorbent is proposed, a good characterization of the material is fundamental to in order to know its properties, support its application and understand its performance in the desired process. There is a variety of physical and chemical information that can obtained by different techniques, whose choice depends on the type of material to be studied and on the available instrumentation. The available techniques include UV-vis, FTIR, Raman, XPS, EDX, zeta potential, XRD, SEM/FESEM, TEM, AFM, surface area and porosimetry, VSM, DLS, thermoanalytical analysis (TG, DTA, DSC and DTG), among several others. These techniques enable the iden-tification, location and quantification of chemical constituents, like elements, functional groups and molecules, as well as the study of the structure, topography, morphology, magnetic properties, and size, among other physical properties of materials. This information can provide great support for the assessment of the synthesis/ functionalization of adsorbent materials as well as in the study of the adsorption process by the interactions between adsorbent and adsorbate. In the face of that, this review intends to be a comprehensive and concise guide for researchers that study adsorbent materials to consult the available characterization techniques and choose the most suitable ones for their specific needs.

Automated summary

Given the great relevance of adsorption processes, especially for water and wastewater treatment, the development and improvement of adsorbent materials is crucial. Different techniques can provide various physical and chemical information about the materials, enabling not only the identification and quantification of properties but also the study of structure, morphology, and magnetic properties. This comprehensive review serves as a guide for researchers to choose suitable characterization techniques for studying adsorbent materials and their specific needs.