Phytoremediation of pollutants from wastewater: A concise review

CAS Key Laboratory of Standardization and Measurement for Nanotechnology, CAS Center for Excellence in Nanoscience, National Center for Nanoscience and Technology, No. 11 Zhongguancun Beiyitiao, Beijing 100190, China

State Key Laboratory of Vegetation and Environmental Change, Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xiangshan, Beijing, China

As there is a global water crisis facing the whole world, it is important to find alternative solutions to treat wastewater for reuse. Hence, plants have an effective role in removing pollutants from wastewater, which has been emphasized in this review article. Biological treatment of wastewater can be considered an eco-friendly and cost-effective process that depends on in the future. Living organisms, including plants, can remediate pollutants in wastewater, especially in agricultural fields, such as dyes, heavy metals, hydrocarbons, pharmaceuticals, and pesticides. This review discusses the different activities of plants in pollutant elimination from wastewater and sheds light on the utilization of plants in this scope. This review focuses on the remediation of the most common contaminants present in wastewater, which are difficult to the removal with microorganisms, such as bacteria, fungi, and algae. Moreover, it covers the major role of plants in wastewater treatment and the potential of phytoremediation as a possible solution for the global water crisis.

Wastewater is the most threatening to the localized environment where the untreated water discharges fluently, which causes many problems in controlling the challenges of supplying clean water to rural and urban regions [1]. Water pollution problems are mainly caused by the effluents of wastewater, which leads to eutrophication. However, these may stimulate algal growth, higher purification costs, health risks to livestock and humans, and excessive oxygen loss, which may cause various changes in the population of aquatic systems [2,3,4]. Numerous hazardous chemical and non-chemical compounds have been introduced by mankind to the environment in the era of industrialism. Pollutants include dyes, heavy metals, organic compounds, and inorganic compounds of hazardous nature, which can pose severe risks to human health. Various techniques and methods may be used to prevent, remove, and correct the negative impacts of pollutants released into the environment. Reducing the contaminant level in soil plants can be used as a cost-effective method that reduces the risk to the ecosystem and human health damaged by contaminated sites [5,6,7]. The presence of harmful chemicals in water has a detrimental impact on the water environment by obstructing light penetration, which stops aquatic plants from photosynthesis [8]. The impact of toxic metal ions may be reduced by various methods, such as membrane filtration, reverse osmosis, chemical precipitation, oxidation, adsorption, and flotation. However, adsorption is very accurate and common due to the uptake of metal in low concentrations, which has feasible economic properties [9,10]. The plants primarily take up the contaminants by the root system, leading to the prevention of toxicity. Besides, root systems come up with a large surface area that accumulates and absorbs the essential nutrients and water for growth along with non-significant contaminants, which help to remediate the contaminants from wastewater and make it clean [11,12]. During experimental studies, it has been proven that the Salvinia molesta plant and others have a greater ability to remove the toxic dyes and contaminates; now, it is a promising approach that is being used in different industries [13,14]. Plant-based green technology and adsorption treatments are common treatments for the removal of contaminates. A lot of progress in this field has been documented in the past few years [15,16]. Different adsorption capacities, operating circumstances, and application forms through experiments revealed that biomass adsorbents are extremely influential and recyclable. Plant components such as the leaf, peel, and other parts efficiently remove contaminants [17,18]. The current review is here to discuss the role of plants in the removal of dyes, heavy metals, inorganic elements, pesticides, hydrocarbons, and pharmaceutical containments from the wastewater. Furthermore, it emphasizes the crucial role played by plants in this area, and recent publications have addressed it. This review addresses a novel discussion on the phytoremediation of dyes, heavy metals, hydrocarbons, pharmaceuticals, inorganic elements, and pesticides, which are the most abundant pollutants in wastewater.

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