Archives

Heavy metals are among the most important sorts of contaminant in the environment. Degradation
of metals is not possible, so usually their removal is required in clean-up. Most of the technologies
for conventional remediation are costly, inhibit soil fertility; and ultimately results in unfavourable
impacts on the ecosystem. Currently, phytoremediation is an effective and affordable technological
solution used to extract or remove inactive metals andmetal pollutants from contaminated soil and
water. This technology is environmental friendly and potentially cost effective. The following review
describes the stature of phytoremediation technologies. Natural metal hyperaccumulator phenotype
is much more important than high-yield ability when using plants to remove metals from
contaminated soils. The hypertolerance of metals is the key plant characteristic required for
hyperaccumulation; vacuolar compartmentalization appears to be the source of hypertolerance of
natural hyperaccumulator plants. In India, however phytoremediation is yet to become available as
a commercial technology. Other initiatives targeted at dissemination, education and training should
be activated in order to increase the familiarity and confidence of the public opinion in these new
sustainable technologies.
Keywords: Contaminant, hyperaccumulator,metals, phytoremediation, technology.