Heavy metal pollution is one of the most important environmental issues in current industrial development. Due to its simplicity and low-cost, adsorption is regarded as one of the green and environmental friendly methods to remove heavy metals from aqueous solutions. Sodium alginate is a natural polysaccharide which contains significant amount of hydroxyl and carboxyl functional groups that has high affinity towards heavy metal ions. Currently, sodium alginate and its derivatives have been widely used to remove heavy metal ions from aqueous solutions in laboratories. Synthesized by surface grafting, crosslinking, and modification, sodium alginate based adsorbents have high adsorption capacities and great metal removal efficiency, which suggests potential industrial applications. However, due to the weak stability and thermos resistance, sodium alginate based adsorbents were limited in industrial applications. In this work, the development of sodium alginate based adsorbents, introduced the structure and chemical properties of sodium alginate, the adsorption performance and affecting parameters of sodium alginate based adsorbents were summarized. Finally, the adsorption mechanism was analyzed. In future studies, material science and environmental engineering could be combined in the adsorbent synthetic process to enhance the structure and adsorption behavior, which could provide potential applications to remove heavy metals from industrial effluents.