Chapter 23 - Sustainable remediation of heavy metals: a review of current status and its future prospects

Abstract

Heavy metal contamination of soil and water bodies has been recognized as a potential threat to the entire biosphere, which accelerated after the industrial revolution and is presumed to be one of the major environmental challenges worldwide in the 21st century. The major health hazards associated with heavy metals include various types of cancers, organ damage, cardiovascular disease, nervous system disorders, etc. Several conventional techniques have been used for decades for the remediation of these noxious elements, but they have their own setbacks. The physical and chemical techniques are associated with high cost, intensive labor requirement, and ecologic destructive effect, which demand the search for alternative remediation techniques. Recently, biological remediation techniques, such as phytoremediation, bioremediation, biosorption, and microbial fuel cell-based techniques have come up as strong contenders and attracted more attention from researchers. Most of these techniques are considered as sustainable methods because of being cheaper, eco-friendly, and safer as compared with conventional methods. This chapter is an effort to provide an update on various remediation techniques and their advantages and disadvantages, with special focus on sustainable methods. This was carried out using the online database of Scopus, Web of Science, PupMed, Medline, ScienceDirect, Springer, Wiley Online Library, and Google Scholar, and all the available information from the past three decades were summarized and discussed. Also, effective sustainable technologies and their future prospects were highlighted.