Membrane adsorbents have emerged as powerful and attractive tools for the removal of hazardous mate-rials such as dyes and heavy metal ions, mainly in trace amounts, from water resources. Among membraneadsorbents, those prepared from or modified with chitosan biopolymer and its derivatives are cases ofinterest because of chitosan advantages including biocompatibility, biodegradability, nontoxicity, reac-tivity, film and fiber forming capacity and favorable hydrophilicity. This review is oriented to providea framework for better insight into fabrication methods and applications of chitosan-based adsorptivemembranes. Critical aspects including thermokinetic analyses of adsorption and regeneration capacity ofthe membrane adsorbents have been also overviewed. Future of chitosan-based adsorptive membranesmight include efforts for the improvement of mechanical stability and reusability and also most tar-geted application of appropriate copolymers as well as nanostructures in preparing high performanceadsorptive membranes.
