Phytoremediation: Green technology for heavy metal clean up from contaminated soils

Abstract

Heavy metal concentration is being continuously increasing in the soil due to modern industrialization and anthropological activities. Heavy metals being nonbiodegradable and with long biological half-lives when entered the food chain, their concentrations get increase increasing with each trophic level due to biomagnification. This increased concentration of heavy metals also poses a threat to human life. A recent new solution to cope up with this problem is the use of green plants for the removal of toxic heavy metals from soil and convert it into harmless and reusable form by a process called phytoremediation. This technology has many advantages over conventional methods for the heavy metal clean up from the soil. Still, there are so many challenges to make this technology practically feasible and useful on a large scale. The present review focuses on the mechanisms of HM uptake, transport, and plant tolerance mechanisms to cope with heavy metals.