of a tannery in the city of Unnao (Uttar-Pradesh state,. India). The following plants were studied: floating greater duckweed, submerged whorled hydrilla.
Land Contamination & Reclamation, 9 (4) 2001 DOI 10.2462/09670513.568
A critical review: protection from pollution by heavy metals – phytoremediation of industrial wastewater Rauf V. Galiulin, Vladimir N. Bashkin, Rumiya R. Galiulina and Paul Birch
Abstract Results, obtained by different authors on the accumulation of heavy metals in plants and the screening of effective metal-accumulating plants under laboratory and field conditions, have been analysed and generalized with the intention of assessing the potential of phytoremediation as an emerging technology for the purification of industrial wastewater contaminated by heavy metals. Key words: industrial wastewater, heavy metals, macrophytes, accumulation
INTRODUCTION Metal ore mining and concentration processes result in bulky solid and liquid waste; dusty and gaseous wastes are also formed during the smelting and refining of metals (Vazhenin and Fateeva 1987; Dudka and Adriano 1997). All of these emissions adversely affect terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. For example, liquid waste in aquatic ecosystems results in the acidification and contamination of water and aquatic food chains by heavy metals. It should be noted that water flows might be acidified by mine drainage water from pyrite (sulphide) deposits, which frequently have a pH
