Green Technologies for Industrial Contaminants

Green Technologies for Industrial Contaminants is essential for understanding innovative, eco-friendly solutions to combat the pressing challenges of pollution and water scarcity faced by our planet.

Increasing population, environmental pollution, rampant industrialization, and scarcity of water are all major global threats. Significant amounts of pollutants are released from various industries such as textile, paper, leather, rubber, plastic, cosmetics, food, pharmaceuticals, and petroleum industries. A lack of proper treatment facilities has proliferated the discharge of effluents enriched with toxic pollutants such as dyes, heavy metals, organic compounds, and other hazardous chemicals in the environment. Water is a natural treasure and availability of safe and clean water is essential for human health, ecosystems, and sustainable development. The continuous decline of the groundwater table and deterioration of water quality are matters of serious concern. The presence of color in water poses a serious threat to the environment, affecting light penetration and reducing photosynthesis and dissolved oxygen. Most dyes and heavy metals are toxic in nature, which may cause skin irritation, allergies, respiratory disease, mental disorders, tumors, and cancer. Different physical and chemical methods are available for the treatment of industrial effluents but due to their high cost, low efficiency, and sludge generation, these methods are not feasible at large scale.

The synergistic approaches of biochar and microbes have an edge over other techniques, including being eco-friendly, cost-competitive and efficient, achieving complete mineralization, and showing low-waste production. Therefore, the combined application of biochar and microbes for pollutant degradation can be a viable option as it is a low-cost and sustainable effluent treatment system for industries. Green Technologies for Industrial Contaminants provides useful information and applications of microbes (bacteria, algae, fungi) and biochar for the removal of contaminants from industrial effluent and reutilization of waste sludge in the production of biofuel and bioenergy.