Potential of fruit and vegetable wastes as novel biosorbents: summarizing the recent studies

Fruit and vegetable wastes produced in astronomical quantities from food processing and agriculture industries often cause nuisance in municipal landfills owing to their high biodegradability. Biosorption by these waste-based adsorbents can be used as a cost effective and efficient technique for the removal of toxic heavy metals and dyes from wastewater. Recently, many papers claiming the feasible use of these biosorbents for water decontamination, treatment of industrial and agricultural wastewater and valuable metal recovery have been published. The organic waste-based adsorbents, characterized by good uptake capacity and rapid kinetics are expected to be economically and ecologically viable. This paper presents a judicious and pragmatic review depicting the key advances in implications of the fruit and vegetable wastes in pollution mitigation, the underlying mechanisms, major challenges and the future implementations. This compilation is expected to provide an impetus to the bioremediation research and promote green technology.