Bioremediation of Mercury from Aqueous Solution

Abstract

With the rapid industrialization all over the world, pollution is on increase and India is no exception. One of the modes through which the pollutants enter in the atmosphere is industrial effluents. These effluents contain large amount of heavy metals (As, Hg, Pb, Cu, Cr, Se, Zn, etc) which pollutes the soil and water resources. Among all these heavy metals Arsenic (As) is highly toxic to all forms of life. Arsenic toxicity has become a global concern owing to the ever-increasing contamination of water, soil and crops in many regions of the world. This has caused a global epidemic of As poisoning, where many people have developed skin lesions, cancers and other symptoms. The major advantages of bioremediation over conventional treatment methods include: low cost, high efficiency, minimization of chemical or biological sludge, regeneration of biosorbents and possibility of metal recovery. The biosorption capacity of the bacteria isolated from heavy metal contaminated sites was found to be an efficient treatment technique for the removal of arsenic from the aqueous solution. Maximum biosorption of metal was found to be 31 mg.g-1 at the pH range of 6 to 7 and at 30ºC.