ABSTRACT
Industrial wastewaters contain a diversity of impurities in various amounts depending on the type of industry, resulting in serious environmental problems. Stringent discharge limits for industrial wastewaters are needed to protect the public health and environment, and thus efficient treatment of industrial wastewater is essential before discharged into the receiving water bodies. The efficiency of phytoremediation depends on many factors such as plant characteristics, type of wastewater, and contaminant characteristics. Phytoremediation of industrial wastewater can take place by various pollutant removal mechanisms, depending on the type of plants, wastewater, and pollutant characteristics. The major mechanisms of phytoremediation are phytofiltration, phytoextraction, phytostabilization, phytovolatilization, phytodesalination, and phytodegradation. Phytovolatilization is the uptake and transpiration of volatile organic contaminants and heavy metals and release to the atmosphere by plants. Food industry wastewaters generally have high concentrations of proteins, peptides, amino acids, carbohydrates, plant fats, weak organic acids, alcohol, aldehydes, and ketones.
