Potential and future prospects of biochar-based materials and their applications in removal of organic contaminants from industrial wastewater

Various paper, oil, leather and textile industries generates a large amount of aromatic recalcitrant organic pollutants and release them into the environment which causes severe health hazards to all living organisms. Residual dyes generated from textile industries are released into the water bodies causes environmental disbalance by getting accumulated in aquatic animals and plants causing death. Many times, this polluted water is used for agriculture purposes and reaches humans through biomagnification and bioaccumulation processes. Synthetic dyes are widely used in the textile industries, when comes in contact with humans via food chain or physical contact causes cancer and genetic mutation. The harmful colour effluent from the textile industries could be managed by various physicochemical and biological methods such as oxidation, phytoremediation, coagulation, or precipitation, using microbial consortium, membrane filtration, chemical, microalgal consortium, enzymatic bioremediation, and adsorbents such as biochar or microbes before releasing into nature. This review focuses on biochar as a viable resource for pollutant removal, climate mitigation, soil and water enhancement and bioethanol production improvement. Its efficiency levels and economic value can also be manipulated by the arrangement of these conditions. We have also discussed different types of dyes used in various industrial and their toxicity. Further, the management of industrial waste effluents containing dyes using agroindustrial waste-derived biochar is discussed in detail. Moreover, other applications of biochar and recent advancements on dye adsorption using biochar are reviewed.