Phytoremediation of Mercury Contamination: Bibliometric Analysis

Lina Mosquera Chaverra, Diego Paredes Cuervo (), Ana López Gutiérrez, Carlos A. Arias () and Pedro N. Carvalho
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Lina Mosquera Chaverra: Faculty of Engineering, Environmental Engineering, Universidad Tecnológica del Chocó, Quibdó 270002, Chocó, Colombia
Diego Paredes Cuervo: Faculty of Basic Environmental Sciences, Universidad Tecnológica de Pereira, Pereira 660003, Risaralda, Colombia
Ana López Gutiérrez: Faculty of Agricultural Sciences and Agroindustry, Universidad Tecnológica de Pereira, Pereira 660003, Risaralda, Colombia
Carlos A. Arias: Department of Biology-Aquatic Biology, Aarhus University, Ole Worms Allé 1, Building 1135, 8000 Århus, Denmark
Pedro N. Carvalho: WATEC—Centre for Water Technology, Aarhus University, Ny Munkegade 120, 8000 Aarhus, Denmark

Sustainability, 2024, vol. 16, issue 21, 1-28

Abstract: Mercury is classified as one of the world’s most toxic and dangerous pollutants as it tends to bioaccumulate and biomagnify within the trophic chain and is persistent. Various approaches are available to remediate Hg-affected sites including phytoremediation, which includes the use of plants to clean up contaminated environments. The phytoremediation of mercury contamination is attracting increasing attention because of its advantages: it is environmentally friendly, inexpensive, simple, and can improve soil fertility. In this report, VOSviewer (version 1.6.1) and Bibliometrix (version 4.16) software were used to analyze 457 and 697 documents published from 2000 to 2023, retrieved from the databases WoS and Scopus, respectively. China, India, the United States, and Spain were the top four most productive countries. The largest topic area was environmental sciences, and the Chinese Academy of Sciences was the organization that contributed the most to the overall number of publications. The keywords with the highest frequency excluding phytoremediation and mercury in WoS were heavy metals, accumulation, cadmium, soils, and phytoextraction. In Scopus, the most frequent keywords were bioremediation, heavy metals, soil pollution, bioaccumulation, biodegradation, and environmental. From the above analysis, we concluded that future research should focus on (1) finding native plants, (2) genetic engineering applications, (3) increasing remediation ability through assisted phytoremediation, and (4) the detoxification mechanism of mercury. This study provides insights into trending themes and serves as a reference for future research.

Keywords: Bibliometrix; bibliometric analysis; mercury; phytoremediation; VOSviewer (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
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