Glyphosate is a non-specific organophosphate pesticide, which finds widespread application in shielding crops against the weeds. Its high solubility in hydrophilic solvents, especially water and high mobility allows the rapid leaching of the glyphosate into the soil leading to contamination of groundwater and accumulation into the plant tissues, therefore intricating the elimination of the herbicides. Despite the widespread application, only a few percentages of the total applied glyphosate serve the actual purpose, dispensing the rest in the environment, thus resulting in reduced crop yields, low quality agricultural products, deteriorating soil fertility, contributing to water pollution, and consequently threatening human and animal life. This review gives an insight into the toxicological effects of the herbicide glyphosate and current approaches to track and identify trace amounts of this agrochemical along with its biodegradability and possible remediating strategies. Efforts have also been made to summarize the biodegradation mechanisms and catabolic enzymes involved in glyphosate metabolism.

By the nucleophilic attack of phenylhydrazine on acephate in aqueous medium, a stable product N′-phenyl-thiophosphorohydrazidic acid O,S-dimethyl ester (1) was obtained and characterized by elemental, spectral and thermal analysis. Thermodynamic parameters, Ea, ΔH°, ΔS° and ΔG°, have found to be 62.15, −67.95, −0.068 and −20.05 kJ mol⁻¹ according to the Coats–Redfern equation. Analysis of interaction of 1 with BSA protein was done by using the UV–Vis and FTIR spectroscopic methods. The observed binding constants was 1.12 (±0.09) × 10⁴ M⁻¹. The biological effect of 1 was checked on different plant growth-promoting (PGPR) strains such as Rhizobium leguminosarum, Pseudomonas fluorescens, Arthrobacter citreus, Bacillus brevis and Salmonella typhimurium and compared with parent molecule acephate where 1 has shown less toxicity against PGPRs as compared to acephate. The experimental results for geometric parameters and values of peak position in IR spectra have found to match excellently with the computational studies performed by GAMESS software package. Theoretically, twelve new analogs of 1 were prepared and their comparative reactivity (HOMO–LUMO energy) and biodecomposition (on the basis of polarizability) is discussed.