Metal(loid)s Sources, Toxicity and Bioremediation
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Date
2022-09-30T00:00:00
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Publisher
CRC Press
Abstract
Human-induced unsustainable processes like industrialization, urbanization, modern agriculture etc. are happening all over the globe at the cost of environment affecting all types of life forms in various ecosystems. A variety of pollutants including heavy metals are widely recognised as environmental pollutant or potentially toxic element (PTE) due to their toxic nature and potential to disrupt ecosystem services provided by various organisms. Heavy metals such as nickel, selenium, arsenic, mercury, copper, lead, chromium, and cadmium are metals that pose serious environmental hazards and risks all over the world. Conventional physico-chemical methods are commonly applied in the remediation of heavy metals at a large scale but have several disadvantages. From sustainability point of view, bioremediation is an eco-friendly, non-invasive strategy and comparatively cost feasible than other available conventional methods and provides a sustainable solution for detoxification of various environmental contaminants such as metalloids etc. Both microbially induced remediation and phytoremediation are deeply studied and investigated by various researchers and further applied as per their potential to remediate metal(loid)s, i.e. nickel, selenium, arsenic, mercury, copper, lead, chromium, cadmium and other pollutants. Different bacterial, fungal and algal species are reported for the potential to remediate different toxic metalloids. Diverse plants such as angiosperms, ferns etc. have evolved innate mechanisms as per local environmental conditions enabling them for detoxification of various pollutants through bioremediation. Several plants, bacterial species, fungal species and algal species are reviewed and cited for their role in bioremediation. The chapter is an attempt to briefly introduce the sources, toxicity and various strategies of bioremediation of metal(loid)s involving bacteria, fungi, algae, and plants. � 2023 Anju Malik, Mohd. Kashif Kidwai and Vinod Kumar Garg.