Recent Trends in Microbial Biosorption of Heavy Metals: A Review

Due to exponential expansion of human population and in turn, incessant intensification in industrialization, heavy metal pollution has become ubiquitous from air to deep soil. There are many bioremediation technologies including biosorption process to decontaminate the heavy metal polluted sites. Currently, the exploitation of microbial biosorption of heavy metals is considered a reliable alternative over the conventional bioremediation approaches. Fundamentally, biosorption is the chemical or physical interaction between biosorbent (solid phase e.g. biomass) and chemical species (e.g. heavy metals) in liquid phase. Application of microorganisms (specifically bacteria, algae, yeasts and fungi) as biosorbents for heavy metal removal have received growing interest due to the high surface to volume ratio, large availability, rapid kinetics of adsorption and desorption and little cost. The present review highlights the underlying features of biosorption, recent updates in mechanisms and selection of biosorbents and various factors affecting biosorption.