Environmentally Friendly Technologies for Wastewater Treatment in Food Processing Plants: A Bibliometric Analysis

Abstract

Currently, the population is experiencing severe water stress mainly due to high water consumption by industries. Food and beverage processing consumes up to 90% of freshwater, resulting in large volumes of wastewater that is often treated with complex, costly and environmentally damaging processes. The purpose of this study is to perform the first bibliometric analysis to evaluate and discuss the evolution in the use of environmentally friendly technologies for wastewater treatment in food processing plants. A total of 606 documents published up to August 2022 were retrieved from Scopus. Data were manually standardized. VOSviewer version 1.5.18 and Bibliometrix version 4.0.0 were used to perform scientific mapping and evaluate bibliometric indicators of quantity, quality and structure. Scientific production is growing exponentially due to factors such as strict environmental policies and increased environmental awareness. The average number of authors per document is 4.056 and prolific authors in the field have not yet been defined. The contribution of the countries (led by the United States with 104 documents) was associated with their gross domestic product (GDP), level of trade and industrialization. Likewise, institutions from China (third place with 70 documents) have the highest contribution in the field. On the other hand, most of the journals where the documents were published are of high quality according to different metrics. According to the most influential articles, the frequency of keywords and their dynamics over time, the use of microalgae, microorganisms and plants for the treatment of effluents generated during food processing is the main trend. The processes also focus on the recovery or recycling of compounds of interest in wastewater such as phosphorus, nitrogen and carbon to contribute to the circular economy.

A base-free hydroxylaminolysis protocol promoted by ZnO in deep eutectic solvents

“…The recovery of the DES from aqueous solution by water evaporation is also a process of treating wastewater produced after the reaction, and water evaporation is a common way to recover DESs 32,33 and to reduce the volume of waste water. 34 Similarly, calcination is a general method for the production of zinc oxide 35 and the recovery of metal zinc in the form of zinc oxide from zinc-containing waste. 36,37 As for the classical hydroxylaminolysis using alkali, it is difficult to compare energy consumption because of not involving reagent recovery and wastewater disposal.…”

Bioremediation of Metal-Polluted Industrial Wastewater with Algal-Bacterial Consortia: A Sustainable Strategy

“…Most of these methods are not capable of removing metals completely, and they are very expensive, inefficient, and need energy for the metal removal [16]. This has led to the need for further research studies on the efficient remediation of IWW using resources that are environmentally friendly and economic [17].…”

Worldwide research on the health effects of bovine milk containing A1 and A2 β-casein: Unraveling the current scenario and future trends through bibliometrics and text mining

“…Bibliometric analysis is more methodical, objective and reproducible than literature reviews and systematic reviews ( Mahi et al, 2021 ). Bibliometrics provides a scientific mapping of a large number of documents to fully and simultaneously explore the intellectual structure and dynamic aspects of knowledge ( Gonzales-Malca et al, 2022 ; Tirado-Kulieva et al, 2022a ; Zapata-Mendoza et al, 2022 ). To our knowledge, there is one bibliometric study on A2 bovine milk ( Jiménez-Montenegro et al, 2022 ), but it only collected papers from the Web of Science database (WoS) database and focused mainly on intellectual structure.…”