Abstract
Paraquat herbicide has served over five decades to control annual and perennial weeds. Despite agricultural benefits, its toxicity to terrestrial and aquatic environments raises serious concerns. Paraquat cannot rapidly degrade in the environment and is adsorbed in clay lattices that require urgent environmental remediation. Advanced oxidation processes (AOPs) and bioaugmentation techniques have been developed for this purpose. Among various techniques, bioremediation is a cost-effective and eco-friendly approach for pesticide-polluted soils. Though several paraquat-degrading microorganisms have been isolated and characterized, studies about degradation pathways, related functional enzymes and genes are indispensable. This review encircles paraquat removal from contaminated environments through adsorption, photocatalyst degradation, AOPs and microbial degradation. To provide in-depth knowledge, the potential role of paraquat degrading microorganisms in contaminated environments is described as well.
Highlights
Paraquat or methyl violet (1,1 -dimethyl-4,4 -bipyridinium dichloride) is a broad-spectrum cationic contact herbicide that is widely used in more than 100 countries (Rashidipour et al, 2019)
Physicochemical paraquat degradation methods depend on titanium dioxide, ozone, ultraviolet radiation and various advanced oxidation processes (AOPs) (Hamad et al, 2016; Gao et al, 2017; Javier et al, 2017)
During the last two decades, physicochemical degradation based on Advanced oxidation processes (AOPs) has been developed as an effective measure to remove paraquat residues from sewage
Summary
Paraquat or methyl violet (1,1 -dimethyl-4,4 -bipyridinium dichloride) is a broad-spectrum cationic contact herbicide that is widely used in more than 100 countries (Rashidipour et al, 2019). Paraquat is applied against annual or perennial weeds of cotton, rice, soybean, and cocoa (Paraquat Information Center, 2018). China banned paraquat aqueous solution in 2016 but the pesticide is still marketed under other formulations. Efficient weed elimination and a unique mechanism made it popular for massive applications. Paraquat deviates electron flow from photosystem that inhibits reduction of oxidized nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate (NADP+) during photosynthesis to produce PQ+ (Setif, 2015). Paraquat targets photosynthesizing green plant parts where PQ+ is re-oxidized by the O2 produced in chloroplasts. During the re-oxidization, lethal superoxide radical (O+) is generated and its subsequent oxidation results in cell death (Reczek et al, 2017)
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