Bioremediation of Heavy Metals by the Nonliving Biomasses for the Treatment of Wastewater

Abstract

Water which covers nearly 70% of earth s surface and the most valuable natural newlineresource is continuously bearing load of biological species, heavy metals and their newlinecompounds, organic compounds and radionuclides. Various physical and chemical newlinemethods have been applied for the removal of heavy metals from waste water newlinesamples. However, biological methods in which the biosorption of the metals takes newlineplace by the bacterial masses has proved highly successful. The present method has newlinebeen devoted to study the biosorption of heavy metals from different water systems newlineby the nonliving biomasses of Pseudomonas oleovorans and Brevundimonas newlinevesicularis(P.oleovorans and B.vesicularis hereinfter).For convenience and clarity of newlinepresentation the subject matter of the thesis has been divided into following chapters: newlineChapter 1 gives a brief description about different forms, toxicity and sources of newlineheavy metals causing water pollution. Various conventional methods of removal of newlineheavy metals from the water systems have been discussed. The major advantages of newlineBiosorption method over the conventional methods has also been discussed. The newlineobjectives of the work embodied in the thesis have also been defined. newlineChapter 2 deals with the review of literature related to bioremediation (by biosorption newlinemethod) of heavy metals (lead, cadmium, copper, nickel and zinc) either as single newlinemetal system or binary metal system from aqueous solution as well as wastewater newlinesamples by microorganisms. Also, the studies undertaken on pretreated bacterial newlinebiomass, mechanism of biosorption of heavy metals , use of the bisorption process in newlinespeciation of heavy metals and characteristics and uses of P.oleovorans and newlineB.vesicualris in Biosorption of the heavy metals are presented. On the basis of newlineliterature, the scope of present work for future researches have been given. newlineChapter 3 gives the detailed description of Materials and Methods used in the present study. Methods related to growth of culture, pretreatment of biomass, biosorption newlineprocess and its mechanism,...