The adsorption method is widely used in wastewater treatment because of its advantages of simple operation, high efficiency, no secondary pollution, and reusability. In the process of adsorption, the recovery of adsorbents determines their economic feasibility and suitability for large-scale practical applications, so it is of great significance to develop new functional adsorbents with self-floating separation characteristics to replace traditional adsorbents. Hollow glass microsphere (HGM) is a kind of hollow closed sphere, which has the advantages of low density, stable chemical properties, reusable, excellent compression resistance, etc. Due to the unique structure and chemical properties of HGM, it has extremely high potential value in the field of wastewater treatment, and is an ideal carrier for preparing adsorbents with self-floating adsorbents. In this paper, the modification of HGM, the regeneration of adsorbents, the factors affecting the adsorption performance and challenges are reviewed. It is found that most of the existing modification methods of HGM are surface chemical modification, and the adsorption effect and regeneration are significant, but the adsorption effect is greatly affected by the change of pH. This review aims to provide a theoretical basis for the application of HGM in wastewater treatment, and for relevant researchers to develop adsorbent with HGM as the main body, clarify ideas, and explore the potential of developing HGM into practice for large-scale wastewater treatment.