Phytotechnologies: current status and future challenges

The degradation of the environment, increased urbanization, global energy demand growth, and climate change, constitute some of the main problems humans are facing today. Furthermore, anthropogenic activities have contributed to the contamination of natural resources due to the generation, emission and deposition of organic and inorganic pollutants. In this sense, a set of technologies based on the use of plants (phytotechnologies), have conquered great visibility because they offer ecological and sustainable solutions to mitigate these problems. This review summarizes the current status of the main types of phytotechnologies, from which phytoremediation, phytomining, biomass for energy generation, and green roofs, stand out. In addition, this work also presents some of the future challenges of phytotechnologies, such as their optimization through advanced gene editing techniques or their combination with nanotechnologies.