Microbial remediation of heavy metals

Abstract

Bioremediation harnesses the naturally occurring biological processes to degrade contaminants or alleviate their toxicity in soils, sediments, and groundwater. As an alternative to conventional pollutants remediation technologies and sometimes by supplementing common techniques, bioremediation holds promise of green technology with eco-friendly and cost-effective approach. Bioremediation aims to reduce total energy use in cleaning up degraded site/polluted site through increasing renewable energy use with reducing greenhouse gas emissions also. Bioremediation holds great promise in recycling precious freshwater resources which are enormously being fed with great number of chemical pollutants, heavy metals and xenobiotics. It aims to reduce negative impacts on water resources and help enhancing land management practices. Overall ecosystem protection, ecosystem restoration and biodiversity restoration are possible with this promising technology through its mechanisms of restoring natural state of ecosystem by acting as buffering agent. Bioremediation technology which helps in handling common organic pollutants in water and agricultural ecosystems also holds promise in remediating heavy metals pollution which is discussed in this article.