Fungal Absorption and Tolerance of Heavy Metals

Abstract

Soil, water, sediments and air are frequently contaminated with heavy metals. In Saudi Arabia, heavy metals contamination may result from petroleum and mining operations, refining ores, sludge, waste treatment, electrical equipment, paints, alloys, pesticides, batteries and fuel transportation. Microbial processes lead to appreciable and even complete remediation of heavy metals contaminated environments. The chief ways, by which such remediation may be accomplished, include biosorption, bioaugmentation, bioventing, biostimulation, bioaccumulation, biosolubilization, bioreduction, bioprecipitation, mineralization and methylation. Other technologies and methods are fully developed and now are being used in practice, such as heavy metals nanotechnology bioremediation. An area of fungal biotechnology currently in vogue is the use of fungal biomass to absorb metal ions from contaminated solutions. Such biological approaches of metal ions recovery can be used to clean up polluted effluents or to recover precious metal ions from solutions. The present review provides information on fungal bioremediation of heavy metal contamination for use in future studies in Saudi Arabia as well as in the Arabian Gulf Region.