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Heavy Metals: Toxicity and Removal by Biosorption

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Environmental Chemistry for a Sustainable World

Part of the book series: Environmental Chemistry for a Sustainable World ((ECSW))

Abstract

Industrialization, urbanization and various anthropogenic activities such as mining and agriculture have increased releases of toxic heavy metals into the natural environment such as soils, lakes, rivers, groundwaters and oceans. The release of heavy metals in biologically available forms alter both natural and man–made ecosystems. Although some heavy metal ions are essential micronutrients for plant metabolism, they become highly toxic when they occur at high concentrations in soils, groundwaters and waste streams. Moreover, heavy metals are not biodegradable and persist in the environment. Conventional methods for the removal of the heavy metals ions from contaminated wasters and wastewaters include chemical precipitation, electroflotation, ion exchange, reverse osmosis and adsorption onto activated carbon. Recently, pioneering research on biosorption of heavy metals has led to the identification of microbes that are extremely effective in bioconcentrating metals. Biosorption is the binding and concentration of an element from aqueous solutions by organic materials such as microbial biomass. The major advantages of biosorption over conventional treatment methods include low cost, high efficiency, minimization of chemical or biological sludge, regeneration of biosorbents and possible metal recovery. Due to their humic acid content, vermicomposts are a novel and effective variety of biosorbent for removing metallic ions such as Pb, Ni, Cr, Cd and V from wastewaters. The types of biosorbents surveyed in this chapter are fungal biomass, biomass of nonliving, dried brown marine algae, agricultural wastes and residues, composite chitosan biosorbent prepared by coating chitosan, cellulose based sorbents, and bacterial strains.

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Acknowledgements

We wish to express our gratitude and appreciation to all the researchers whose valuable data, research findings and discussions as reported in their respective publications and reports, have been of considerable significance in adding substance to this review on survey of recent developments. We are grateful to our other colleagues and the anonymous reviewers whose criticisms have benefited the manuscript. Our sincere thanks to Brian Phelps (http://www.phelpstek.com/) for having been gracious enough to provide us with the structure of humic acid.

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  1. Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University of Mauritius, Reduit, Mauritius

    Ackmez Mudhoo

  2. Department of Environmental Science and Engineering, Guru Jambheshwar University of Science and Technology, Hisar, 125001, Haryana, India

    Vinod Kumar Garg

  3. Department of Chemical Engineering, Curtin University of Technology, U1987, Perth, 6845, WA, Australia

    Shaobin Wang

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  1. Ackmez Mudhoo
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  2. Vinod Kumar Garg
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  3. Shaobin Wang
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Correspondence to Ackmez Mudhoo .

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    Eric Lichtfouse

  2. Inst. für Geologie, Geochemie, u. Lagerstätten d. Erdöls u. d. Kohle, RWTH Aachen, Lochnerstr. 4-20, Aachen, 52056, Germany

    Jan Schwarzbauer

  3. Lab. de Chimie Industrielle, Université de Metz, rue Victor Demange, Saint-Avold, 57500, France

    Didier Robert

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Mudhoo, A., Garg, V.K., Wang, S. (2012). Heavy Metals: Toxicity and Removal by Biosorption. In: Lichtfouse, E., Schwarzbauer, J., Robert, D. (eds) Environmental Chemistry for a Sustainable World. Environmental Chemistry for a Sustainable World. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-2439-6_10

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