The heavy-metal contamination from industrial processes, mining, and agriculture poses significant environmental and human health risks due to the toxicity and persistence of the metals like lead, cadmium, arsenic, chromium, and mercury. The traditional methods of remediation, such as the chemical and physical methods, often prove to be very expensive, as well as polluting the environment. However, phytoremediation provides a completely environmentally friendly, less costly, alternative where plants are utilized in order to absorb, immobilize, or metabolize contaminants. Despite its potential, phytoremediation faces challenges like slow remediation, metal toxicity, and disposal of spent biomass. This perspective highlights an advanced sustainable chemo-biological strategy—nanochemistry in phytoremediation—to enhance the efficiency of existing traditional technologies of heavy-metal removal. The article covers the convergence of nanochemistry and the main targeted phytoremediation techniques: rhizofiltration, phytoextraction, and phytovolatilization. The effectiveness of these methods is highly controlled by factors such as plant species selection, soil chemistry, pH conditions, and interactions with associated microorganisms. It further highlights the underlying mechanisms by which nanoparticles enhance heavy-metal removal efficiency, including nanoparticle-induced stress tolerance pathways in plants, while addressing the associated challenges and future perspectives for improving efficiency and field-scale applications.
Tembhurne et al. (Tue,) studied this question.