Plants, animals, and fisheries waste-mediated bioremediation of contaminants of environmental and emerging concern (CEECs)-a circular bioresource utilization approach

Abstract

The release of contaminants of environmental concern including heavy metals and metalloids, and contaminants of emerging concern including organic micropollutants from processing industries, pharmaceuticals, personal care, and anthropogenic sources, is a growing threat worldwide. Mitigating inorganic and organic contaminants, which can be coined as contaminants of environmental and emerging concern (CEECs), is a big challenge as traditional physicochemical processes are not economically viable for managing mixed contaminants of low concentrations. As a result, low-cost materials must be designed to provide high CEEC removal efficiency. One of the environmentally viable and energy-efficient approaches is biosorption, which involves using biomass or biopolymers isolated from plants or animals to decontaminate heavy metals in contaminated environments using inherent biological mechanisms. Among chemical constituents in plant biomass, cellulose, lignin, hemicellulose, proteins, polysaccharides, phenolic compounds, and animal biomass include polysaccharides and other compounds to bind heavy metals covalently and non-covalently. These functional groups include carboxyl, hydroxyl, carbonyl, amide, amine, and sulfhydryl. Cation-exchange capacities of these bioadsorbents can be improved by applying chemical modifications. The relevance of chemical constituents and bioactives in biosorbents derived from agricultural production such as food and fodder crops, bioenergy and cash crops, fruit and vegetable crops, medicinal and aromatic plants, plantation trees, aquatic and terrestrial weeds, and animal production such as dairy, goatery, poultry, duckery, and fisheries is highlighted in this comprehensive review for sequestering and bioremediation of CEECs, including as many as ten different heavy metals and metalloids co-contaminated with other organic micropollutants in circular bioresource utilization and one-health concepts.

Keywords: CEECs including heavy metals, metalloids, and organic micropollutants; Chemical constituents and functional moieties; Detoxification; Field and industrial crop biomass residues; Livestock and fisheries wastes.