Developments of heavy metal removal methods during the latest decade based on Citespace analysis

Abstract

Heavy metal pollution has been one of the most important issues all around the world. Millions of people caught serious diseases because of such pollutions. Thus, many research focused on heavy metal removal, and several reviews had been made. However, most of them pay attention to a certain field. This research used mega data to offer a general view of the development of heavy metal removal in the past decade. With the help of software of Citespace, the clustering chart, timeline and landscape of certain topics are made from the Web of Science Core Collection between 2013 and 2023. From the clustering charts, we discovered the most popular topics in recent years, which are “Biosorption” “Adsorption” “Microalgae” “Electrocoagulation” “Biochar” and “Water treatment”. Also, we analyzed clusters one by one, and give a brief introduction of some of the most popular keywords of each topic. From the timelines, developments of each topic are given. We can conclude that “Biosorption” and “Biochar” are gaining more attention, while “Adsorption” is less and less popular. “Microalgae”, “Electrocoagulation” and “Water treatment” have stable popularity. This article is aimed to introduce a new method of analyzing data and up-to-date information in heavy metal removal to readers.