Worldwide distribution, current trends and scientific progress in Spirulina research (1967–2024): A Scientometric analysis

Abstract

Spirulina is a promising functional food with versatile applications in the environment, animal feed, cosmetics, biofuel production, agriculture, biotechnology, and medicine. This study presents the first scientometric analysis of the scientific literature concerning Spirulina published worldwide in the Web of Science database (1967–2024). The descriptive and network/visualization analyses were carried out via WoS tools and CiteSpace, respectively. It presents a visualization of complex information (5899 articles) from a broad perspective. The number of publications increased 11.3 times from 2002 to 2022, whereas the average number of citations per year increased by 32.3 times in the same period. Most academic production of Spirulina has been carried out by researchers from China (15.1 % of the world production), India (11.6 %), the USA (8.2 %), Brazil (8.0 %) and Egypt (6.5 %). Over the past twenty years, research on Spirulina has advanced significantly, revealing remarkable progress in understanding its health benefits and applications for food and dietary supplementation purposes. Spirulina shows promise for modulating the gut microbiota, but robust human clinical studies are lacking. Even though spirulina is a potential source of biodiesel, high production costs still hinder its commercial viability. Spirulina production has a significant positive impact on waste reduction, bioremediation and economic diversification. While Spirulina production continues to present growing opportunities across various sectors, from health to energy, there is a clear need to overcome gaps related to scalability, consumer acceptance, lifecycle assessments, engine performance, economic feasibility and regulation to maximize its positive impact on the circular economy and global sustainability.