In particular, two main approaches have been tried in the conversion of cellulose into compounds capable of adsorbing heavy metal ions from aqueous solutions.
The first of these methods involves a direct modification of the cellulose backbone with the introduction of chelating or metal binding functionalities producing a range of heavy
metal adsorbents.
Alternative approaches have focused on
grafting of selected monomers to the cellulose backbone either directly introducing metal binding capability or with subsequent functionalisation of these grafted polymer
chains with known chelating moieties.