Acknowledgment to the Reviewers of Journal of Environmental & Earth Sciences in 2025
2026-02-06
Bioengineered Materials for Soil and Water Remediation: Mechanisms, Effectiveness, and Global Applications
Authors
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Xikun Liu
College of Ecological Engineering, Jiangsu Institute of Architectural Technology, Xuzhou 221016, China
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Hongwei Chen
Water Supply and Drainage Management Office of Yancheng City, Yancheng 224002, China
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Yang Liu
Xuzhou Water Resources Design and Construction Institute Co., Ltd., Xuzhou 221112, China
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Yan Wang
Xuzhou Tongshan District Waterworks Co., Ltd., Xuzhou 221000, China
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.30564/jees.v8i6.13273Abstract
Bioengineered materials are becoming more accepted as sustainable and efficient remedies towards the reduction of soil and water pollution caused by industrialization, agriculture, and urban development. This review is a synthesis of recent discoveries in bioengineered remediation materials, which range from microbial-based materials, biopolymer-derived sorbents, bio-inspired and biomimetic materials, and plant/biomass-derived hybrids. It focuses on the mechanistic principle of contaminant removal, such as adsorption, ion exchange, chelation, precipitation, biodegradation, and redox-mediated transformation and synergistic pathways facilitated by multifunctional hybrid designs. Commonly used metrics in performance evaluation include removal efficacy, kinetics, capacity, selectivity, stability, and reusability, with a specific focus on the differences between laboratory demonstrations and field-scale results in complex environmental matrices. The review also explains major constraints to large scale application, such as material fouling and degradation, inconsistency in changing pH and redox environments, biosafety and ecotoxicity (in particular in the case of living or genetically modified materials), cost and scale-up, and regulatory guidance and standardization lapses. Lastly, the future directions are described, based on opportunities in synthetic biology, smart and stimuli-responsive materials, integrated sensing and monitoring, and circular-economy organizing coupled with remediation and resource recovery. In general, bioengineered materials provide an attractive direction for the use of adaptable, low-impact remediation strategies, yet their global realization will demand balanced improvements in the material design, risk analysis, and scaled implementations.
Keywords:
Bioengineered Materials; Soil Remediation; Water Treatment; Adsorption and Biodegradation; Environmental SafetyReferences
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Liu, X., Chen, H., Liu, Y., & Wang, Y. (2026). Bioengineered Materials for Soil and Water Remediation: Mechanisms, Effectiveness, and Global Applications. Journal of Environmental & Earth Sciences, 8(6), 198–212. https://doi.org/10.30564/jees.v8i6.13273
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Copyright © 2026 Xikun Liu, Hongwei Chen, Hongwei Chen, Yan Wang
This is an open access article under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) License.
