Phytoremediation of heavy metals: mechanisms of decontamination and enhancements

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

The ability of many plant species to withstand, accumulate, and/or eliminate environmental toxins such PCBs, TNT, pharmaceuticals, textile dyes, phenolics, heavy metals, and radionuclides has been effectively tested in recent years using hairy roots as a study tool. The word "phytoremediation" describes a variety of techniques for cleaning up inorganic and organically contaminated environments using photoautotrophic vascular plants. Hyperaccumulators are necessary for sites that are extensively contaminated with organic pollutants and could be created through genetic engineering techniques. But by enhancing their dietary and environmental needs, efficient hyperaccumulation by naturally existing plants is also possible and can be made practical. So, it appears that phytoremediation of organics is a very promising approach for removing pollutants from damaged soil. Aspects of plant metabolism related to the phytoremediation of organic pollutants and their pertinent phytoremediation activities are reviewed in this paper.