Advances and Applications of Water Phytoremediation: A Potential Biotechnological Approach for the Treatment of Heavy Metals from Contaminated Water

Cristián Raziel Delgado-González, Alfredo Madariaga-Navarrete, José Miguel Fernández-Cortés, Margarita Islas-Pelcastre, Goldie Oza, Hafiz M. N. Iqbal and Ashutosh Sharma
Additional contact information
Cristián Raziel Delgado-González: Área Académica de Ciencias Agrícolas y Forestales, Instituto de Ciencias Agropecuarias, Universidad Autónoma del Estado de Hidalgo, Tulancingo 43600, Mexico
Alfredo Madariaga-Navarrete: Área Académica de Ciencias Agrícolas y Forestales, Instituto de Ciencias Agropecuarias, Universidad Autónoma del Estado de Hidalgo, Tulancingo 43600, Mexico
José Miguel Fernández-Cortés: Centre of Bioengineering, School of Engineering and Sciences, Tecnologico de Monterrey, San Pablo 76130, Mexico
Margarita Islas-Pelcastre: Área Académica de Ciencias Agrícolas y Forestales, Instituto de Ciencias Agropecuarias, Universidad Autónoma del Estado de Hidalgo, Tulancingo 43600, Mexico
Goldie Oza: Centro de Investigación y Desarrollo Tecnológico en Electroquímica (CIDETEQ), Parque Tecnológico, Pedro Escobedo 76703, Mexico
Hafiz M. N. Iqbal: School of Engineering and Sciences, Tecnologico de Monterrey, Monterrey 64849, Mexico
Ashutosh Sharma: Centre of Bioengineering, School of Engineering and Sciences, Tecnologico de Monterrey, San Pablo 76130, Mexico

IJERPH, 2021, vol. 18, issue 10, 1-21

Abstract: Potable and good-quality drinking water availability is a serious global concern, since several pollution sources significantly contribute to low water quality. Amongst these pollution sources, several are releasing an array of hazardous agents into various environmental and water matrices. Unfortunately, there are not very many ecologically friendly systems available to treat the contaminated environment exclusively. Consequently, heavy metal water contamination leads to many diseases in humans, such as cardiopulmonary diseases and cytotoxicity, among others. To solve this problem, there are a plethora of emerging technologies that play an important role in defining treatment strategies. Phytoremediation, the usage of plants to remove contaminants, is a technology that has been widely used to remediate pollution in soils, with particular reference to toxic elements. Thus, hydroponic systems coupled with bioremediation for the removal of water contaminants have shown great relevance. In this review, we addressed several studies that support the development of phytoremediation systems in water. We cover the importance of applied science and environmental engineering to generate sustainable strategies to improve water quality. In this context, the phytoremediation capabilities of different plant species and possible obstacles that phytoremediation systems may encounter are discussed with suitable examples by comparing different mechanistic processes. According to the presented data, there are a wide range of plant species with water phytoremediation potential that need to be studied from a multidisciplinary perspective to make water phytoremediation a viable method.

Keywords: hazardous pollutants; toxic elements; removal mechanisms; bioremediation; biodiversity; water (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/10/5215/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/10/5215/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:18:y:2021:i:10:p:5215-:d:554466

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().