Using Cucurbits By-Products as Reagents for Disposal of Pollutants from Water Environments (a Literature Review)

The paper summarizes data from literature sources using the waste of processing cucurbits (pumpkin, watermelon, melon, cucumber) as a sorption material to remove various pollutants from water environments. It states that cucurbits' shells are effective sorption materials for extracting heavy metal ions and dyes. Seeds of large cucurbits fruits (pumpkin, watermelon, melon) and seed shells also showed good sorption performance for heavy metal ions and dyes. It was found that most of the pollutants adsorption isotherms on cucurbits by-products are most accurately described by the Langmuir model, less often by the Freundlich model, and occasionally by the Tyomkin or Dubinin-Radushkevich models. It was determined that the adsorption process kinetics most often follows the pseudo-second-order model, less often – the logistic model. To increase the adsorption characteristics of cucurbits fruit components for various pollutants, they were modified with various chemical reagents.