A critical review and bibliometric analysis of methylene blue adsorption using leaves

The rapid development of the industrial world causes wastewater containing dyes to continue to increase. Even in recent years, the food, textile, cosmetic, plastic, and printing industries have developed the use of dyes. Methylene blue (MB) is one of the cationic dyes widely used in dyeing silk, wood, and cotton because of its absorbency and good fastness to materials. The adsorption process is the best technique and preferred in removing dyes from wastewater due to excellent selectivity, high efficiency from high-quality treated effluent, flexibility in design, and simplicity. Therefore, there is a growing interest to identify low-cost alternative adsorbents that have reasonable adsorption efficiency, especially natural materials such as leaves. In this study, research on MB adsorption using leaves was analyzed using bibliometric analysis. Information of bibliometric is extracted from the Scopus database with the keyword “Methylene Blue”, “Adsorption or Desorption”, and “Leaves or leaf”. The results showed that India, Desalination and Water Treatment, and SASTRA Deemed University were the country, journal, and institution that contributed the most publications on this topic. Therefore, it is expected that with the use of bibliometrics, the use of leaf-based MB adsorption processes in their potential for MB dye removal can be investigated especially for large-scale development. [Display omitted] •Adsorption is more promising for large-scale development than photocatalytic degradation.•Adsorbent based on leaves needs further research, especially from a techno-economic perspective.•The first bibliometric study on MB adsorption using leaves was reported.•The high frequency of “adsorption” and “methylene blue” for the research hotspot.