CHAPTER 18 Phytoremediation of persistent organic pollutants: Concept challenges and perspectives Prathmesh Anerao, Roshan Kaware, Akshay kumar Khedikar, Manish Kumar and Lal Singh CSIR-National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (CSIR-NEERI), Nagpur, Maharashtra, India 18.1 Introduction Swift upsurge in urbanization and industrialization, leading to air, water, and soil pollution (Nie et al., 2020; Sun et al., 2020). Many industries like pharmaceuticals, paper and pulp, and leather use a lot of chemical complexes for various treatment processes. This creates a threat to the safety of the environment by the discharge of the effuent of these harmful chemicals (Mishra et al., 2020a). The effuents contain a majority of heavy metals and persistent organic pollutant (POPs) such as polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), polychlorinated biphenyl (PCBs), pesticides, dichloro- diphenyl-trichloroethane (DDT), polychlorinated dibenzodioxins, hexachloroben- zene, dieldrin, endrin, heptachlor, etc. (Kodavanti et al., 2014; Tiwari et al., 2021; Sun et al., 2020; Gaur et al., 2018)(Fig. 18.1). These are major threats to the environment because of their detrimental and long-lasting effect on each component of the natural ecosystem (Kumar et al., 2020b; Tiwari et al., 2021). These contaminations cause a drastic effect on the developing countries because of nontreatment dumping of waste materials and residues in the open environment (Kumar et al., 2020a; Bogdal et al., 2013). Furthermore, these compounds can cause destruction even at very low con- centrations because of their toxicity and chemical stability although these composites show high resistance toward chemical, biological, and photolytic degradation (Sun et al., 2020; Miniero et al., 2015). Among all these environmental pollutants, POPs are the worst at causing harm to the environment and human health (Gaur et al., 2018). According to United Nations Environment Programme, these are chemical substances known as POPs because of persistency in the environment, tropical transfer via food chain and bioaccumulation potency (Yan et al., 2020). These POPs are critical compounds that are highly nonbiodegradable, serving prolonged bioavailability especially PAHs, PCBs, halo hydrocarbons, and some organochlorine biopesticides which tend to sustain in the 375 Phytoremediation Technology for the Removal of Heavy Metals and Other Contaminants from Soil and Water. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-323-85763-5.00018-0 Copyright c  2022 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.