Chapter 4 - Technologies for pesticide removal from water and wastewater— A bibliometric survey

Abstract

The concerns of toxicity and adverse ecological effects associated with pesticide-polluted water and wastewater has led researchers to investigate and develop various treatment techniques for its remediation. This chapter focuses on bibliometric analysis of trends in research carried out for treating water and wastewater containing pesticides over the last decade (2011–20) to identify major pesticide removal methods. Bibliographic data of 4805 documents published during the last ten years were retrieved from the Scopus database for this research. The bibliometric survey involved analysis of the type of documents, year-wise growth of documents, subject categories of documents, and top-cited documents on pesticide removal. It also identified the most prevalent journals and nations contributing toward pesticide removal research. 80.7% of the documents on pesticide removal were published in the form of articles. The annual growth rate of these documents was observed to be 7.26%, with the year 2020 being the most productive. The United States emerged as the most highly contributing nation toward pesticides removal research. Through the analysis of titles, abstracts, and keywords of these documents on pesticide removal research, it was found that researchers have attempted various biological, physical, and chemical methods for pesticide degradation from water and wastewater. The top five most identified processes were adsorption, advanced oxidation, biodegradation, photocatalysis, and ozonation. In addition, the study discusses different types of pesticides and environmental hazards associated with pesticide pollution. A short summary on various biological, physical, and chemical methods for removing pesticides from water and wastewater has also been provided.