Somani C. Rath, Upasana Bhagawati, Rakesh Kumar, Arti Goel
{"title":"Unveiling the Potential of Biogenic Nanoparticles for Wastewater Remediation: A Systematic Review","authors":"Somani C. Rath, Upasana Bhagawati, Rakesh Kumar, Arti Goel","doi":"10.1007/s11270-026-09978-0","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>In recent decades, escalating water pollution driven by demographic growth, industrial development, agricultural intensification, and rapid urban expansion has emerged as a critical global environmental challenge. Contamination of water bodies by heavy metals, organic compounds, and pathogenic microorganisms has intensified the need for sustainable wastewater remediation strategies. This review elucidates the mechanistic potential and strategies for wastewater remediation using biogenic nanoparticles (BNPs) synthesized via plant, bacterial, fungal, and algal systems as emerging multifunctional materials for addressing complex wastewater matrices. Conventional wastewater treatment methods, such as coagulation, flocculation, and sedimentation, have limitations in efficiency, chemical demand, and operational costs, prompting interest in innovative BNP-based approaches. BNPs demonstrated enhanced adsorption, catalytic transformation, and antimicrobial activity due to their biomolecule-rich surfaces, enabling efficient contaminant removal across industrial, municipal, textile, pharmaceutical, and agricultural wastewater systems. It has been evaluated BNP synthesis routes and mechanisms, pollutant removal efficiencies, environmental behavior, and implementation challenges. This review summarized that BNPs achieve enhanced adsorption, catalytic transformation, and antimicrobial activity, with removal efficiencies of 80–98% for dyes and 70–95% for heavy metals, while offering improved biocompatibility and reduced ecotoxicity compared with chemically synthesized nanoparticles. This review also highlights critical barriers to large-scale application, including synthesis variability, economic scalability, regulatory uncertainty, and community acceptance. Moreover, environmental fate analyses reveal that post-treatment transformations, including sulfidation, organometallic complexation, and surface passivation, play a decisive role in governing BNPs' persistence, bioavailability, and ecological impact.</p><h3>Graphical Abstract</h3><div><figure><div><div><picture><source><img></source></picture></div></div></figure></div></div>","PeriodicalId":808,"journal":{"name":"Water, Air, & Soil Pollution","volume":"237 22","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.5000,"publicationDate":"2026-09-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s11270-026-09978-0.pdf","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Water, Air, & Soil Pollution","FirstCategoryId":"6","ListUrlMain":"https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11270-026-09978-0","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
In recent decades, escalating water pollution driven by demographic growth, industrial development, agricultural intensification, and rapid urban expansion has emerged as a critical global environmental challenge. Contamination of water bodies by heavy metals, organic compounds, and pathogenic microorganisms has intensified the need for sustainable wastewater remediation strategies. This review elucidates the mechanistic potential and strategies for wastewater remediation using biogenic nanoparticles (BNPs) synthesized via plant, bacterial, fungal, and algal systems as emerging multifunctional materials for addressing complex wastewater matrices. Conventional wastewater treatment methods, such as coagulation, flocculation, and sedimentation, have limitations in efficiency, chemical demand, and operational costs, prompting interest in innovative BNP-based approaches. BNPs demonstrated enhanced adsorption, catalytic transformation, and antimicrobial activity due to their biomolecule-rich surfaces, enabling efficient contaminant removal across industrial, municipal, textile, pharmaceutical, and agricultural wastewater systems. It has been evaluated BNP synthesis routes and mechanisms, pollutant removal efficiencies, environmental behavior, and implementation challenges. This review summarized that BNPs achieve enhanced adsorption, catalytic transformation, and antimicrobial activity, with removal efficiencies of 80–98% for dyes and 70–95% for heavy metals, while offering improved biocompatibility and reduced ecotoxicity compared with chemically synthesized nanoparticles. This review also highlights critical barriers to large-scale application, including synthesis variability, economic scalability, regulatory uncertainty, and community acceptance. Moreover, environmental fate analyses reveal that post-treatment transformations, including sulfidation, organometallic complexation, and surface passivation, play a decisive role in governing BNPs' persistence, bioavailability, and ecological impact.
期刊介绍：
Water, Air, & Soil Pollution is an international, interdisciplinary journal on all aspects of pollution and solutions to pollution in the biosphere. This includes chemical, physical and biological processes affecting flora, fauna, water, air and soil in relation to environmental pollution. Because of its scope, the subject areas are diverse and include all aspects of pollution sources, transport, deposition, accumulation, acid precipitation, atmospheric pollution, metals, aquatic pollution including marine pollution and ground water, waste water, pesticides, soil pollution, sewage, sediment pollution, forestry pollution, effects of pollutants on humans, vegetation, fish, aquatic species, micro-organisms, and animals, environmental and molecular toxicology applied to pollution research, biosensors, global and climate change, ecological implications of pollution and pollution models. Water, Air, & Soil Pollution also publishes manuscripts on novel methods used in the study of environmental pollutants, environmental toxicology, environmental biology, novel environmental engineering related to pollution, biodiversity as influenced by pollution, novel environmental biotechnology as applied to pollution (e.g. bioremediation), environmental modelling and biorestoration of polluted environments.
Articles should not be submitted that are of local interest only and do not advance international knowledge in environmental pollution and solutions to pollution. Articles that simply replicate known knowledge or techniques while researching a local pollution problem will normally be rejected without review. Submitted articles must have up-to-date references, employ the correct experimental replication and statistical analysis, where needed and contain a significant contribution to new knowledge. The publishing and editorial team sincerely appreciate your cooperation.
Water, Air, & Soil Pollution publishes research papers; review articles; mini-reviews; and book reviews.
求助内容：
应助结果提醒方式：
京公网安备 11010802042870号
