Advances in the biosorption of heavy metals

The biosorption of heavy metals by certain types of non-living biomass is a highly cost-effective new alternative for the decontamination of metal-containing effluents. Our understanding of the mechanisms of metal biosorption now allows the process to be scaled up and used in field applications, with packed-bed sorption columns being perhaps the most efficient for this purpose. Regenerating the biosorbents increases the process economy by allowing their reuse in multiple sorption cycles. The process results in metal-free effluents and small volumes of solutions containing concentrated metals, which can be easily recovered.