5. Efficient and Cost Effective Groundwater De-fluoridation Adsorbents with Focus on Rural Hilly India: A Comprehensive Review

From ancient times, underground water resources such as wells and bawaris have been used for drinking and other daily activities. Half of the world’s population still relies on groundwater to satisfy their drinkable water needs. Consequently, its quality is degraded due to industrialization and human interference. The most prevalent concern is groundwater contamination from sewage, industrial effluents, pesticides, and other pollutants. As a result, one of the most critical and complex environmental concerns confronting all life forms on Earth is supplying adequate clean drinking water to every human being to ensure survival. Groundwater is estimated to be the source of domestic water for 80% of the rural and 50% of its urban areas. Fluoride-rich groundwater exposure produced everything from dental fluorosis to devastating skeletal fluorosis in humans and animals. Although numerous defluoridation methods are available, including coagulation, reverse osmosis, and nanofiltration, these technologies have proven ineffective in rural areas, particularly in rural hilly areas, due to high costs and a lack of skilled operators. The present review aims to corroborate the uses of organic products, mainly from agriculture, agroforestry, and forest waste. In this chapter, we discuss the preparation of various adsorbents from these products, the efficiency of fluoride removal, the cost–benefit analysis, and market economy. The chapter provides insight into some cost-effective mitigating approaches for ground water defluoridation at the household and community level in rural hilly areas of India.