Biosorption of Heavy Metals

Abstract

Large-scale production of commodities for mankind by industries did huge damage to the environment. Industrial waste contains lots of toxic materials including heavy metals were drained to water bodies like river, lakes, ponds, etc. These effluents drastically ruin water quality as well as the soil fertility. Type of industry and its raw material decides quantity and quality of the emerged wastes including both biodegradable as well as non-biodegradable. Among non-biodegradable wastes, copper, chromium, nickel, cadmium, etc. are widespread contaminants of soil, water, and these are most common heavy metals. Several heavy metals such as cadmium, mercury, and lead are highly poisonous and fatal to human as well as animals. Several plants as well as microbes respond to heavy metals by diverse biological processes like biosorption to their cell wall and entrapment in their capsule, oxidation and reduction, precipitation, complexation, etc. These responses may help significantly in the remediation of heavy metals from the contaminated sites.