Energy crops in sustainable phytoremediation

What is it about?

Phytoremediation is a holistic approach and can be used in large scale to remediate the contaminated land resources. Although the concept of phytoremediation is few decades old and has been applied to a wide range of pollutant’s remediation, but “sustainable phytoremediation” is still unexplored and is the need of the hour to remediate our valuable resources with ecologically and socio-economically advantages. It can be achieved easily by using potential energy crops in phytoremediation programs. There are several energy crops in the world, but four promising and dedicated energy crops i.e. Miscanthus, Jatropha, Ricinus, Populus have great potential to accomplish energy demands with their phytoremediation potential. These four energy crops also act as potential carbon sink and offer an additional profit as carbon tax credits. We attempted to improve our understanding of one of the most important environmental challenges, contaminated lands of contemporary world, and how we might effectively solve or mitigate this challenge with energy production. The present review provides a strategy to accomplish “sustainable phytoremediation through linking phytoremediation with energy crops”, and effectively solve the challenge of ever increasing contaminated sites and biofuel demands now and for future.

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