Research status and trends of mycelial pellets and their application in the field of environment based on bibliometrics

Abstract:

The fermentation, morphological observation, and metabolite purification of mycelial pellets and the application of mycelial pellets in sewage treatment and energy recovery have gained widespread attention from researchers in the fields of environment and biology. To get a full picture of the research hotspots and trends of mycelial pellets. We screened 1 337 scientific articles related to the application of mycelial pellets that were published in the past 20 years from the Web of Science. The clustering and temporal trends of keywords and the co-occurrence of countries, authors or institutions were visually analyzed. The annual number of published articles was on the rise, involving a total of 97 topics, and interdisciplinary articles were abundant and tended to have higher cited frequency. China’s achievements in this field kept a leading position and China maintained close cooperation with other countries. The hot keywords remained stable (growth, morphology, fermentation, removal, degradation, mycelial pellets, biological control, fungi, culture, optimization, biodegradation, and biosorption), and the uptrending and emerging keywords changed in recent years. The application of mycelial pellets in water treatment had been increasingly studied, with the related keywords (waste water, performance) becoming increasingly frequent. Emerging keywords related to wastewater treatment with mycelial pellets as carriers (biomass, bacteria), synthesis by mycelial pellets (biosynthesis), and water treatment with both mycelial pellets and algae (Chlorella vulgaris, microalgae) remained hot. This result indicates that research on the application of mycelial pellets in water treatment has gradually evolved into more systematic research directions, which will become future research hotspots and opportunities.