Heavy metals are rapidly polluting the environment as a result of growing industrialization and urbanization. The presence of high concentrations of chromium (Cr), along with other pollutants, is widespread in tannery wastewater. In Pakistan, as a result of a severe shortage of irrigation water, farmers use tannery wastewater to grow various crops with a consequent decline in plants’ yield. This experiment was performed to assess growth revival in sunflower plants irrigated with 0%, 25%, 50%, 75%, and 100% tannery wastewater, by foliar application of 0, 2.5, and 5.0 mM citric acid (CA). The wastewater treatment curtailed biomass accumulation, the growth rate, and chlorophyll contents by exacerbating the oxidative stress in sunflowers. Foliar application of CA considerably alleviated the outcomes of Cr toxicity by curbing the Cr absorption and oxidative damage, leading to improvements in plant growth, biological yield, and chlorophyll contents. It is concluded that foliar application of CA can successfully mitigate the Cr toxicity in sunflower plants irrigated with tannery wastewater.

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Chitosan (polysaccharide) is used for cationization of cotton and to increase the uptake of reactive dye by the cationized cotton. Four different concentration of chitosan (0.5, 1.0, 1.5 and 2.0%) were applied for 0.5 and 4.0% shades of C.I. Reactive Red and C.I. Reactive Yellow dye, respectively. Different properties e.g. K/S value, washing fastness, light fastness and rubbing fastness of the dyed cotton (untreated and treated with chitosan) were recorded for comparison. The K/S values of chitosan treated fabrics (6.1-13.9 and 18.3-22.8 for both dye shades, respectively) were considerably better than untreated fabric (4.7-5.3 and 16.8-17.0). The results of present study clearly demonstrated that the use of chitosan as an exhausting agent not only reduced the amount of dye for dyeing the cotton fabric but also improved the washing and rubbing fastness properties. The present study further demonstrated that the use of chitosan in textile industry can minimize the dyeing cost, effluent treatment cost and other auxiliary utilization.