Sodium dimethyl dithiocarbamate, as a capable heavy metal chelating agent: Production and applications

Sodium dimethyl dithiocarbamate (SDDC) is a universal heavy metal precipitant/chelating agent, which is widely used in the treatment of heavy metals in industrial wastewater and fly ash from waste incineration. It can be utilized as a heavy metal precipitant, fungicide, agricultural insecticide, rubber vulcanization accelerator, styrene-butadiene rubber polymerization terminator, polymerization inhibitor, mineral processing reagent, etc. This review article focuses on the research of the production and application of SDDC in heavy metal chelation. The following three benefits of using SDDC as a heavy metal chelating agent are: (1) it can chelate with various heavy metal ions at room temperature to generate insoluble chelate salts and precipitates, which can be easily removed; (2) SDDC can perform chelation reaction with varies heavy metal ions at the same time; (3) as a heavy metal chelating agent, SDDC is simple to use and low costs, which is significantly better than other heavy metal chelating agents and precipitants. This review paper presents novel ideas for the performance enhancement based on SDDC in removing heavy metals and is a prospect for the research, development, production, and applications of SDDC.