Zhang Xu, Zou Guoyan, Chu Huaqiang, Shen Zheng, Zhang Yalei, Abbas Mohamed H H, Albogami Bader Z, Zhou Li, Abdelhafez Ahmed A
Eco-Environmental Protection Research Institute, Shanghai Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Shanghai, China.
State Key Laboratory of Pollution Control and Resource Reuse, College of Environmental Science and Engineering, Tongji University, Shanghai, China.
Front Bioeng Biotechnol. 2023 Aug 17;11:1258483. doi: 10.3389/fbioe.2023.1258483. eCollection 2023.
Environmental pollution with potentially toxic elements (PTEs) has become one of the critical and pressing issues worldwide. Although these pollutants occur naturally in the environment, their concentrations are continuously increasing, probably as a consequence of anthropic activities. They are very toxic even at very low concentrations and hence cause undesirable ecological impacts. Thus, the cleanup of polluted soils and water has become an obligation to ensure the safe handling of the available natural resources. Several remediation technologies can be followed to attain successful remediation, i.e., chemical, physical, and biological procedures; yet many of these techniques are expensive and/or may have negative impacts on the surroundings. Recycling agricultural wastes still represents the most promising economical, safe, and successful approach to achieving a healthy and sustainable environment. Briefly, biochar acts as an efficient biosorbent for many PTEs in soils and waters. Furthermore, biochar can considerably reduce concentrations of herbicides in solutions. This review article explains the main reasons for the increasing levels of potentially toxic elements in the environment and their negative impacts on the ecosystem. Moreover, it briefly describes the advantages and disadvantages of using conventional methods for soil and water remediation then clarifies the reasons for using biochar in the clean-up practice of polluted soils and waters, either solely or in combination with other methods such as phytoremediation and soil washing technologies to attain more efficient remediation protocols for the removal of some PTEs, e.g., Cr and As from soils and water.
潜在有毒元素（PTEs）造成的环境污染已成为全球范围内严峻且紧迫的问题之一。尽管这些污染物在环境中天然存在，但其浓度却在持续上升，这可能是人为活动所致。即便在极低浓度下，它们也具有很强的毒性，从而造成不良的生态影响。因此，清理受污染的土壤和水体已成为确保安全利用现有自然资源的一项义务。可以采用多种修复技术来实现成功修复，即化学、物理和生物方法；然而，这些技术中的许多都成本高昂且/或可能对周围环境产生负面影响。回收农业废弃物仍然是实现健康可持续环境最具前景的经济、安全且成功的方法。简而言之，生物炭可作为土壤和水体中许多潜在有毒元素的高效生物吸附剂。此外，生物炭能大幅降低溶液中除草剂的浓度。这篇综述文章解释了环境中潜在有毒元素水平上升的主要原因及其对生态系统的负面影响。此外，它简要描述了使用传统土壤和水体修复方法的优缺点，然后阐明了在污染土壤和水体清理实践中单独或与植物修复和土壤冲洗技术等其他方法结合使用生物炭的原因，以获得更高效的修复方案来去除一些潜在有毒元素，如土壤和水中的铬和砷。
