ABSTRACT
Environmental pollution and energy crisis are the two important concerns the world is facing today and both these issues need an immediate resolution. Several conventional remediation techniques have been practiced from time to time to mitigate environmental pollution, but are costly and negatively affects the ecosystem stability. However, the only strategy which is cost-effective as well as eco-friendly is phytoremediation. Employing energy crops as phytoremediation agents offers a valid answer for the issue of energy crisis as well as pollution. The biomass of energy crop harvested after the decontamination process can be successfully utilized for the production of renewable energy. Another striking attribute is the role of energy crops in maintaining carbon economy of the soil by efficiently sequestering them and thereby mitigating climate changes to a great extent. Even though energy crops are excellent candidates for phytoremediation and are a source of energy, there exist some challenges which are yet to be resolved. These include the presence of contaminants in biofuels, decreased biomass yield, changing land use pattern and proper implementation of the technique. If these concerns are met, in the future, energy crops will influence our economy in the form of energy sources as well as increased productivity of other food crops as the soil quality will be enhanced through decontamination of pollutants.
