New developments in treatment of heavy metal contaminated soils

Contamination of soil and groundwater by heavymetals is a widespread problem due to theformer activities of metal processing, sufracetreatment and mining industry and theuncontrolled dumping of waste in landfills.Several methods do exist to treat soil andgroundwater. This paper will pay attention tosome new developed methods based on removal ofthe metals from the soil (simultaneousextraction and binding to biomass) or thegorundwater (aboveground treatment by sulphatereducing bacteria). Due to the fact that veryoften large areas are affected by heavy metalcontamination a removal is difficult. Thereforesome methods are developed to keep the metalsin the soil but reduce the risks related tothis presence. This risk reduction is based ona decrease in bioavailability by in situimmobilisation processes. These in situimmobilisation processes allow the treatment oflarge diffusely contaminated areas. Twoapproaches are presented. The first approach isbased on the addition of soil additives toimmobilize the metals. In this case specialattention is paid to the the biologicalevaluation methods of the reduction in metalbioavailability. The second approach uses againSRBs for the in situ precipitation ofmetal sulphides.

[1]  Webb,et al.  Metal removal by sulphate‐reducing bacteria from natural and constructed wetlands , 1998, Journal of applied microbiology.

[2]  J. Lloyd,et al.  Whole cell- and protein-based biosensors for the detection of bioavailable heavy metals in environmental samples , 1999 .

[3]  A. Zouboulis,et al.  Biosorption of cadmium ions by Actinomycetes and separation by flotation , 1999 .

[4]  D. Sabatini,et al.  Coupled iron corrosion and chromate reduction: mechanisms for subsurface remediation. , 1995, Environmental science & technology.

[5]  P. Corbisier,et al.  Heavy Metals Bioremediation of Soil , 1999, Molecular biotechnology.

[6]  L. Diels,et al.  Bacterial biosensors for the toxicity assessment of solid wastes , 1996 .

[7]  M. Mergeay,et al.  The sss gene product, which affects pyoverdin production in Pseudomonas aeruginosa 7NSK2, is a site‐specific recombinease , 1994, Molecular microbiology.

[8]  David W. Blowes,et al.  A Full‐Scale Porous Reactive Wall for Prevention of Acid Mine Drainage , 1997 .

[9]  F. Schinner,et al.  Removal of nickel from plating rinsing water with a moving-bed sand filter inoculated with metal sorbing and precipitating bacteria , 1999 .

[10]  F. Schinner,et al.  Treatment of rinsing water from electroless nickel plating with a biologically active moving-bed sand filter , 2001 .

[11]  J Vangronsveld,et al.  Reclamation of a bare industrial area contaminated by non-ferrous metals: physico-chemical and biological evaluation of the durability of soil treatment and revegetation. , 1996, Environmental pollution.

[12]  D. Adriano,et al.  Mimicked in-situ stabilization of metals in a cropped soil : Bioavailability and chemical form of zinc , 1996 .

[13]  M. Mergeay,et al.  Siderophore-mediated iron uptake in Alcaligenes eutrophus CH34 and identification of aleB encoding the ferric iron-alcaligin E receptor , 1996, Journal of bacteriology.