Treatment of wastewater generated from traditional Chinese medicine processing and utilization: Recent advances and future outlook

Abstract

Nowadays, traditional Chinese medicine plays an important role in curing many diseases, and its market expands quickly due to the potential great profits it can bring. To be an attractive industry, both economic and environmental aspects should be considered. As wastewater is usually generated from traditional Chinese medicine processing and utilization, its treatment is one of the hot research topics in environmental engineering currently. Many technologies can be applied for the treatment of this wastewater, but the technical background and performance vary greatly especially for different kinds of wastewater. In this situation, a systematical and comprehensive summary for the development of these technologies is necessary. In this review article, the sources of wastewater from the processing and utilization of traditional Chinese medicine are introduced firstly to show where this wastewater comes from. And then, the recent advances on the technologies for the treatment of this wastewater are introduced in detail to show what technologies can be applied. At last, the future outlook for the development of these treatment technologies is given to discuss how to fulfill their industrial application. Overall, this review article can present some important information for building a clean and sustainable traditional Chinese medicine industry. • Traditional Chinese medicine processing and utilization generate wastewater. • Potential sources of different kinds of wastewater are introduced. • Technologies for this wastewater treatment are discussed systematically. • Outlook for fulfilling industrial application of different technologies is given. • Effective and efficient technologies integration is shown comprehensively.