Integrated remediation techniques for heavy metal pollution in environment

Addressing heavy metal pollution is one of the hot areas of environmental research. Despite natural existence, various anthropogenic sources have contributed to an unusually high concentration of heavy metals in the environment. They are characterized by their long persistence in natural environment leading to serious health consequences in humans, animals, and plants even at very low concentrations (1 or 2 µg in some cases). Several individual treatments, namely, physical, chemical, and biological are being implied to remove heavy metals from the environment. But they all face challenges in terms of expensiveness and in-situ treatment failure. Hence, integrated processes are gaining popularity as it is reported to achieve the goal effectively. Integrated processes are the combination of two different methods to achieve a synergistic and an effective effort to remove heavy metals.