Hotspots and Trends of Layered Double Hydroxide-based Adsorbents for Polluted Water Treatment: Insights from Bibliometric Analysis

The use of layered double hydroxides (LDHs) as adsorbent for water treatment has been gaining relevance in recent years. In this context, this work aimed to map, through a bibliometric study, the extent of research that deals with the theme. The scientific database used was the Web of Science, and the chronology of the search consideredthe period from 1997 to 2022. The bibliometix R-package and VOSviewer software were used in this study. The searches retrieved a total of 663 documents, from 69 countries, distributed among all continents, which China (328), India (51) and Japan (40) were the most productive countries. Important journals in the environmental area and with high impact factor, such as Chemical Engineering Journal (44), Applied Clay Science (38), Journal of Hazardous Materials (35) and Chemosphere (27) most published in the area. The network of keywords used by the authors indicates that the publications retrieved deal mainly with aspects related to the efficiency of (LDHs) in the removal of different pollutants, the composition, the synthesis route and the association with other materials and/or techniques. The result of this study constitutes an important tool for directing future research on the subject.

Automated summary

This study used bibliometric analysis to explore the extent and trends of research on the use of layered double hydroxides (LDHs) as adsorbents for water treatment. The findings revealed that China, India, and Japan were the most productive countries in this field, and important journals in the environmental area published numerous high-impact articles. The network of keywords used by the authors highlighted the focus on the efficiency, composition, synthesis routes, and association with other materials and techniques in the removal of pollutants by LDHs.