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      A New Strategy for Heavy Metal Polluted Environments: A Review of Microbial Biosorbents

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          Abstract

          Persistent heavy metal pollution poses a major threat to all life forms in the environment due to its toxic effects. These metals are very reactive at low concentrations and can accumulate in the food web, causing severe public health concerns. Remediation using conventional physical and chemical methods is uneconomical and generates large volumes of chemical waste. Bioremediation of hazardous metals has received considerable and growing interest over the years. The use of microbial biosorbents is eco-friendly and cost effective; hence, it is an efficient alternative for the remediation of heavy metal contaminated environments. Microbes have various mechanisms of metal sequestration that hold greater metal biosorption capacities. The goal of microbial biosorption is to remove and/or recover metals and metalloids from solutions, using living or dead biomass and their components. This review discusses the sources of toxic heavy metals and describes the groups of microorganisms with biosorbent potential for heavy metal removal.

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          Most cited references80

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          Biosorbents for heavy metals removal and their future.

          A vast array of biological materials, especially bacteria, algae, yeasts and fungi have received increasing attention for heavy metal removal and recovery due to their good performance, low cost and large available quantities. The biosorbent, unlike mono functional ion exchange resins, contains variety of functional sites including carboxyl, imidazole, sulphydryl, amino, phosphate, sulfate, thioether, phenol, carbonyl, amide and hydroxyl moieties. Biosorbents are cheaper, more effective alternatives for the removal of metallic elements, especially heavy metals from aqueous solution. In this paper, based on the literatures and our research results, the biosorbents widely used for heavy metal removal were reviewed, mainly focusing on their cellular structure, biosorption performance, their pretreatment, modification, regeneration/reuse, modeling of biosorption (isotherm and kinetic models), the development of novel biosorbents, their evaluation, potential application and future. The pretreatment and modification of biosorbents aiming to improve their sorption capacity was introduced and evaluated. Molecular biotechnology is a potent tool to elucidate the mechanisms at molecular level, and to construct engineered organisms with higher biosorption capacity and selectivity for the objective metal ions. The potential application of biosorption and biosorbents was discussed. Although the biosorption application is facing the great challenge, there are two trends for the development of the biosorption process for metal removal. One trend is to use hybrid technology for pollutants removal, especially using living cells. Another trend is to develop the commercial biosorbents using immobilization technology, and to improve the biosorption process including regeneration/reuse, making the biosorbents just like a kind of ion exchange resin, as well as to exploit the market with great endeavor.
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            Remediation of heavy metal(loid)s contaminated soils--to mobilize or to immobilize?

            Unlike organic contaminants, metal(loid)s do not undergo microbial or chemical degradation and persist for a long time after their introduction. Bioavailability of metal(loid)s plays a vital role in the remediation of contaminated soils. In this review, the remediation of heavy metal(loid) contaminated soils through manipulating their bioavailability using a range of soil amendments will be presented. Mobilizing amendments such as chelating and desorbing agents increase the bioavailability and mobility of metal(loid)s. Immobilizing amendments such of precipitating agents and sorbent materials decrease the bioavailabilty and mobility of metal(loid)s. Mobilizing agents can be used to enhance the removal of heavy metal(loid)s though plant uptake and soil washing. Immobilizing agents can be used to reduce the transfer to metal(loid)s to food chain via plant uptake and leaching to groundwater. One of the major limitations of mobilizing technique is susceptibility to leaching of the mobilized heavy metal(loid)s in the absence of active plant uptake. Similarly, in the case of the immobilization technique the long-term stability of the immobilized heavy metal(loid)s needs to be monitored. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
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              Microbial and plant derived biomass for removal of heavy metals from wastewater.

              Discharge of heavy metals from metal processing industries is known to have adverse effects on the environment. Conventional treatment technologies for removal of heavy metals from aqueous solution are not economical and generate huge quantity of toxic chemical sludge. Biosorption of heavy metals by metabolically inactive non-living biomass of microbial or plant origin is an innovative and alternative technology for removal of these pollutants from aqueous solution. Due to unique chemical composition biomass sequesters metal ions by forming metal complexes from solution and obviates the necessity to maintain special growth-supporting conditions. Biomass of Aspergillus niger, Penicillium chrysogenum, Rhizopus nigricans, Ascophyllum nodosum, Sargassum natans, Chlorella fusca, Oscillatoria anguistissima, Bacillus firmus and Streptomyces sp. have highest metal adsorption capacities ranging from 5 to 641 mg g(-1) mainly for Pb, Zn, Cd, Cr, Cu and Ni. Biomass generated as a by-product of fermentative processes offers great potential for adopting an economical metal-recovery system. The purpose of this paper is to review the available information on various attributes of utilization of microbial and plant derived biomass and explores the possibility of exploiting them for heavy metal remediation.
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                Author and article information

                Contributors
                Role: Academic Editor
                Journal
                Int J Environ Res Public Health
                Int J Environ Res Public Health
                ijerph
                International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
                MDPI
                1661-7827
                1660-4601
                19 January 2017
                January 2017
                : 14
                : 1
                : 94
                Affiliations
                Food Security and Safety Niche Area, Faculty of Agriculture, Science and Technology, North-West University, Private Bag X2046, Mmabatho 2735, South Africa; 28072693@ 123456g.nwu.ac.za
                Author notes
                [* ]Correspondence: Olubukola.Babalola@ 123456nwu.ac.za ; Tel.: +27-18-389-2568
                Article
                ijerph-14-00094
                10.3390/ijerph14010094
                5295344
                28106848
                4ca7db80-06ff-472f-8cb6-a360186145ee
                © 2017 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.

                This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) license ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

                History
                : 20 October 2016
                : 13 January 2017
                Categories
                Review

                Public health
                bioremediation,biosorbent,biosorption,heavy metals,microorganisms,remediation
                Public health
                bioremediation, biosorbent, biosorption, heavy metals, microorganisms, remediation

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