Applications of Clay Minerals and Engineered Materials in Water and Wastewater Treatment

A special issue of Minerals (ISSN 2075-163X). This special issue belongs to the section "Clays and Engineered Mineral Materials".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 October 2025 | Viewed by 959

Special Issue Editors


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1. Institute of Chemical Engineering Sciences, Foundation for Research and Technology, P.O. Box 1414, GR-26504 Patras, Greece
2. Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Patras, GR-26504 Patras, Greece
Interests: clay minerals and other engineered materials application as adsorbents for water and wastewater treatment; materials characterization (spectroscopy and physcicochemical characteristics); hydrochar synthesis; biological methods for wastewater treatment

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Guest Editor
Department of Environment, Ionian University, Zakynthos, Greece
Interests: mineralogical characterization; clay, clay mineral, and other natural material used in cosmetics, pharmaceutical, energy, and environmental applications; nanocomposites’ synthesis and characterization; molecular simulations (quantum and classical) of clay minerals interacted with organic or inorganic materials
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Section of Earth Materials, Department of Geology, University of Patras, 265 04 Patras, Greece
Interests: mineralogical characterization; clay mineral deposits genesis; clay, clay minerals, and other natural material applications; nanocomposites’ synthesis and characterization
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The global issue of wastewater production and groundwater pollution poses a crucial environmental and public health challenge. Wastewater production has increased and often overwhelms the capacity of existing treatment infrastructure due to excessive urban, industrial, and agricultural activities. Uncleaned or inadequately treated wastewater may contain contaminants, including heavy metals, pathogens, increased concentrations of nutrients, and hazardous chemicals, which may leach into the aquifer, the primary source of drinking water for more than two billion people. Moreover, as freshwater resources diminish due to climate change and over-extraction, the urgent need for sustainable wastewater management and pollution prevention strategies is highlighted.

The application or contribution of clay minerals and engineered materials is of crucial importance in the research field of water and wastewater treatment. Their natural abundances and/or properties, such as high specific surface area, porosity, adsorption capacity, ion exchange capacity, and non-toxicity, can result in environmentally friendly and sustainable degradation of contaminants in water bodies, as they reduce the need for chemical treatment and minimize secondary contamination.

The Special Issue invites submissions that include original scientific research relating to clays and clay minerals (montmorillonite, bentonite, kaolinite, halloysite, palygorskite, sepiolite, illite) and other engineered materials (zeolites, layered double hydroxides, fly ash, cementitious phases) evaluation as promising materials in water and wastewater treatment. The Special Issue focuses on the following topics: (a) experimental research with the application of clayey and engineered materials in real or synthetic contaminated water/ wastewater samples for treatment, (b) the physicochemical and spectroscopy characteristics of the used materials, and (c) molecular simulation (potentially combined with experimental data) of these materials and their properties for contaminants removal.

Dr. Christina Vasiliki Lazaratou
Dr. Eleni Gianni
Prof. Dr. Dimitrios Papoulis
Guest Editors

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Keywords

  • clay minerals
  • zeolites
  • layered double hydroxides
  • cement materials
  • spectroscopy characteristics
  • materials properties
  • molecular simulations
  • water treatment
  • wastewater treatment
  • adsorption
  • catalysis

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Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

18 pages, 2498 KiB  
Article
Table Olive Wastewater Treatment Using the Clay Mineral Palygorskite as Adsorbent
by Christina Vasiliki Lazaratou and John Rosoglou
Minerals 2025, 15(8), 861; https://doi.org/10.3390/min15080861 - 15 Aug 2025
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Abstract
This study investigated the effectiveness of palygorskite (Pal) as an adsorbent for removing total phenolic content (TPC), dissolved chemical oxygen demand (d-COD), and color from treated olive wastewater (TOW). Experiments were conducted to evaluate the impact of varying Pal dosages (2.5–20 g/L), initial [...] Read more.
This study investigated the effectiveness of palygorskite (Pal) as an adsorbent for removing total phenolic content (TPC), dissolved chemical oxygen demand (d-COD), and color from treated olive wastewater (TOW). Experiments were conducted to evaluate the impact of varying Pal dosages (2.5–20 g/L), initial TPC concentrations (80–400 mg/L), and pH (2–9). The results showed that increasing the Pal dosage improved the removal efficiency of TPC and d-COD, though there were diminishing returns beyond 10 g L−1, which indicates equilibrium adsorption behavior. The maximum TPC and d-COD removal reached 68% and 55%, respectively, while color removal exceeded 95% regardless of dosage. Adsorption was most efficient at lower TPC concentrations and an acidic pH (2–3), with up to 85% TPC removal. This suggests that pH-dependent phenolic ionization enhances Pal adsorption. Color removal remained consistently high across all conditions, highlighting palygorskite’s mesoporosity and affinity for chromophoric compounds. These findings affirm the potential of Pal as a cost-effective and versatile adsorbent for TOW treatment. Full article
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18 pages, 6084 KiB  
Article
Amphoteric Halloysite and Sepiolite Adsorbents by Amino and Carboxy Surface Modification for Effective Removal of Cationic and Anionic Dyes from Water
by Boutaina Boumhidi, Nadia Katir, Jamal El Haskouri, Khalid Draoui and Abdelkrim El Kadib
Minerals 2025, 15(8), 841; https://doi.org/10.3390/min15080841 - 8 Aug 2025
Viewed by 338
Abstract
Surface functionalization is a key enabler that imparts solid materials with excellent chemoselectivity. With this aim, halloysite and sepiolite clay particles were functionalized with carboxyethylsilanetriol sodium salt (CES) and 3-aminopropyltriethoxysilane (APTES), affording carboxy-terminated and amino-terminated clay, respectively. In the case of halloysite, the [...] Read more.
Surface functionalization is a key enabler that imparts solid materials with excellent chemoselectivity. With this aim, halloysite and sepiolite clay particles were functionalized with carboxyethylsilanetriol sodium salt (CES) and 3-aminopropyltriethoxysilane (APTES), affording carboxy-terminated and amino-terminated clay, respectively. In the case of halloysite, the grafting occurs at Al-OH groups of the lumen surface (tube inner surface) and Al-OH and Si-OH groups at the edges and external surface defects of the nanotubes. For sepiolite, silanol groups located on the edges of the structural channels were at the origin of a chemical reaction between this fibrous clay and the terminal alkoxysilane. The resulting modified clays were examined for removal of Congo red (CR) and malachite green (MG) as anionic and cationic dyes, respectively. Clay bearing only carboxylic groups display more affinity towards cationic dye (MG), recording 926 mg·g−1 and 387 mg·g−1 for HNT-CES and SEP-CES, respectively, while amino-functionalized clays show very high adsorption for anionic dye (CR), reaching 1232 and 1228 mg·g−1 for HNT-APTES and SEP-APTES, respectively. Simultaneous grafting of the two silyl coupling reagents was also attempted through one-pot and sequential grafting method, with the latter being more appropriate to access amphoteric clay featuring both carboxylic and amino groups. The behavior of the bifunctional adsorbents was investigated with respect to pristine and monofunctional clay. The obtained results provide insights to fulfill the requirement for handling complex water effluent containing both anionic and cationic pollutants, towards more sustainable development. Full article
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