Research Hotspots and Trends of Microbial Remediation of Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons in the Presence of Heavy Metals—Based on Bibliometrics Analysis of CiteSpace

As a high-efficiency remediation technology without secondary pollution, the microbial remediation has a broad application prospect in the remediation of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in the presence of heavy metals. Based on the core database of Web of Science, the research hotspots and trends of microbial remediation of PAHs in the presence of heavy metals from 1998 to 2020 were analyzed by CiteSpace. The results showed that:(1) The number of published papers about the microbial remediation of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in the presence of heavy metals showed a rapid growth trend, and the main research directions were the environmental science, engineering, biotechnology and microbiology; the country with the largest number of published papers was China, and the Chinese Academy of Sciences made the most contribution among the global research institutions. (2) The analysis of keywords showed that the research hotspots focused on the types of pollutants (mainly cadmium, phenanthrene and pyrene), degradation mechanism, microbial remediation technology and bioavailability. (3) The research trend analysis showed that the biochar, heavy metal-resistant strain, risk assessment and simultaneous remediation were the research fronts. This study provided reference for the further study of the microbial remediation technology and mechanism of PAHs.