Heavy Metal Pollution and Biosorption

Heavy Metal Pollution and Biosorption

Himanshi Srivastava, Pinki Saini, Anchal Singh, Sangeeta Yadav
Copyright: © 2024 |Pages: 38
DOI: 10.4018/979-8-3693-1618-4.ch001
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Abstract

The escalation of environmental pollution by heavy metals has emerged as a global concern in recent years, posing a significant threat to public health. This phenomenon is exacerbated by the ongoing rise in anthropogenic activities, notably industrial processes and urbanization, which indiscriminately release pollutants into the environment without effective control and mitigation measures. Subsequently, these metals traverse the food chain, impacting animals and humans. Elevated levels of heavy metals can have deleterious effects on organisms and plants, disrupting the metabolic functions of vital organs and glands. Continuous assessment and monitoring of heavy metal levels in the environment are imperative due to the escalating anthropogenic activities. The primary objective of this chapter is to provide an illustrative discussion on important heavy metals, environmental pollution caused by heavy metals, encompassing air, soil, and water. Various toxic effects on human health have been considered, and corresponding remedies have been presented.
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Introduction

Water is the essential resource required to sustain life on this planet. Water plays a major role in the civilization, growth and economy of developed and developing countries (Paul and Sinha, 2013). Rapid industrialization, increasing population, urbanization and careless utilization of natural resources is one of the most frequent reasons of water pollution and presently being the most emerging problem of each developing country (Carolin et al., 2017; Vardhan et al., 2019). This is due to large amount of industrial effluent, dyes, organic matter, radio-nuclides, pharmaceutical, pesticides, heavy metals, plastics, suspended solids, parasites and pathogens being present and disposed into the natural water bodies (Villarín and Merel, 2020). Sewage and slugs are also part of above environmental pollutants which cause danger to aquatic biota and deteriorates water quality (Sinha and Paul, 2014). Actually, the quality of water is a critical concern for living beings and it is directly associated with human welfare. Industrial waste water is source of heavy metals like cadmium (Cd), chromium (Cr), lead (Pb), arsenic (As), mercury (Hg), cobalt (Co), zinc (Zn), copper (Cu), silver (Ag), iron (Fe) and platinum (Pt). These toxic heavy metals are every day released into the water from different natural and anthropogenic sources.

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