The scarcity of clean water is currently a global challenge. This situation is exacerbated by increasing levels of various volatile organic compounds in surface waters limiting their drinkability, as well as posing a major health risk to aquatic and human life. Biosorption is one extensively researched method with a great potential to remove a variety of toxic pollutants from contaminated wastewaters. This biotechnology has been tried, tested and reported to be more reliable for the removal of pollutants in industrial wastewaters owing to the availability of the biomaterials for the technology and renewability, eco-friendliness and its cost effectiveness. This review focuses on membrane technologies and the incorporation of lignin. Lignin is a biopolymer and by-product of organosolv and alkali pre-treatments in the pulp industry. The abundant availability of pure lignin has improved the performance of membranes for water treatment. The idea of fabricating or modifying lignin with composite materials capitalising on the maximum possible performance of the membranes without affecting its selectivity has attracted lots of research interest in recent times. This paper explores the bulk of literature and discusses the details of hydrogen bonding responsible for the interactions between the lignin and composite during the membrane fabrication process. This review found that valuable knowledge is available and still untapped for particular research and application interests.