Bioremediation of Heavy Metals by Algae: A Review on Evaluation of Low Cost and High Performance Biosorbents

Over the past several years, the increasing contamination in various environmental segments due to unscrupulous discharge of trace metals from several sources is a matter of serious concern. Of several techniques employed for the separation of metal ions from aquatic complex matrices, the biosorption, in which metal ions interact with the functional groups on the surface or within the cellular wall of the biomass, has been found to be potentially more selective depending upon the typical binding profile of the biosorbent. This article deals with bioremediation of heavy metals by different forms of algae, viz; free living/dead, pre-treated or immobilized forms. Various pre-treated or immobilized algae biomass can serve as a basis for the development of potent and low cost biosorbent materials which can be regenerated for multiple reuse in static (batch) and dynamic (column) methods of strategic or valuable heavy metals recovery.