Boron removal from aqueous solutions by adsorption — A review

•A detailed review of sorbents for boron removal is proposed.•Minority of review articles focus on the sorbents for boron removal.•Several summary tables make the article intuitive and clear.•The proportion of references quoted in 2013–2015 is more than 50%.

Boron is an essential element for plants, animals and humans, but more and more environment pollutions and health problems are caused by various boron applications. There have been many separation technologies used in boron removal from aqueous solutions in recent years. Among these technologies, adsorption is very important which can treat solutions with very low concentration of boron using boron-selective adsorbents. This article reviews a number of sorbents for boron removal from aqueous solutions, including chelating resins, activated carbon, fly ash and industrial waste materials, natural materials, oxides and hydroxides, layered double hydroxides, new type inorganic sorbents and complexing membranes.