Heavy Metal Removal From Multicomponent System

     Heavy metals, such as copper, lead, mercury, and selenium are another group of toxins that pollute the water as well as the rest of the environment. The source of many of these pollutants are industries, automobile exhaust, mines, and even natural soil.

Balasubramanian, D., Bryce, C.F.A, Dharmalingam, K., Green, J. & Jayaraman, K. (Eds.) (2004). _Concepts in Biotechnology_ (2nd ed.). India: University Press

Contaminated water poses health risks on humans, pets, wild animals, and farm animals. (Mcdermott-Levy 2013)

The purpose this issue became of great significance these years is that the water pollution can not only poison the creatures in the water. Also affect the quality of Biodiversity declines

Three main ways our public drinking waters can become contaminated are by agricultural runoff, which have effects that go all the way from the effects of the remnants left behind from sprayed pesticides and unmanaged animal feces. Second, we have an oil and coal industry that just never stops. What comes from our oil industry ultimately ends up changing and altering the biology of the surrounding water with thermal pollution, and in some cases I have seen this reported as just as if not more damaging than bacterial or sedimentary pollution. The coal industry pollutes surrounding waters with sulfides from leaching. Illustrations are given below.

There has been an increased presence within the water of toxic chemicals, metals, and disease causing microorganisms throughout the years. In general, the main cause of water pollution is the sewage pipes as well as the factories which are slowly becoming more in control. Although the contamination of water has slowly began to be stopped there is still heavy contamination from the waterways from the farmlands which tend to carry fertilizers, pesticides, as well as organic matter. Rain is a major contributor to water contamination from the different acids and heavy metals which fall with the rain contribute to the water

All around the world, countries are fighting to keep their drinking water clean. Whether it’s streams, rivers, or lakes, countries have taken great measures to maintain high quality drinking water for both human consumption and animal consumption. Countries must first understand the sources of the polltion, then determine the best methods to eliminate the pollution. Clean drinking water is a valuable resource and a the key to human survival. Plants and animals also depend on water for their growth, so all water must be kept clean. The major contributors to water pollution can be classified in three categories, industrial, agricultural and municipal.

The three species she tested were: Nigra, Rapa, and Juncea. After she blended each species she used these zinc test strips that tells you how much zinc was consumed by each plant using a scale of ppm(parts per million). The type of species I used consumed about 2 ppm, though it did look to be between 0 ppm and 2 ppm. It is debatable whether the test trip came out white or a light shade of pink. Due to my plant dying, I can infer that it was possible that the Juncea plant with the toxin in the water reservoir actually took up the toxins, but it’s not really sure if it was the toxin-water plant or the toxin-soil plant due to both being blended together. Thus supporting my claim about the plant being a good or bad bioremediator depending where the toxin is

Ph.D. Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), Biological Science and Engineering (Dewey D. Ryu) (1983)

[5]Fernandez-Gomez, Francisco J., Maria F. Galindo, Maria Gómez-Lázaro, Victor J. Yuste, Joan X. Comella, Norberto Aguirre, and Joaquín Jordán. "Abstract." National Center for Biotechnology Information. U.S. National Library of Medicine, 17 Jan. 2005. Web. 08 Oct. 2014. <http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1576031/#bib3>.

This laboratory exploration attempted to determine the LC50 of copper concentration and a mixture of copper, zinc, and manganese from the mine tailing leachate on Daphnia magna. Acute metal toxicity testing guidelines were followed and dose response curve was developed to determine these values. The LC50 of copper concentration was approximated to be 56 μg/L. The LC50 for the mine tailing leachate with the prevalence of Zn, Cu, and Mn metals was the dilution factor of 1:1.57. These values were compared to literature values. It was concluded that various environmental parameters, including pH and hardness have a great influence on metal toxicity.

Pollution has been an ongoing program that dates back thousands of years and consists of air, noise, water, light, soil, thermal, and radioactive forms (causes). This research paper will concentrate on water pollution, types, causes, and solutions to deal with what possibly will lead to an inevitable destruction of our environment, leading to water ways that cannot sustain life. Life cannot exist without clean, or non-polluted water. Since our drinking water and a lot of our food sources come from these bodies of water, it is crucial that we all take part in controlling and fixing the water pollution problem that is plaguing all of our bodies of water.

The metals/ elements include cadmium, lead, copper, zinc and chromium which have been found at much higher quotas than they should be at (Kihampa). As humans grow and expand and industrialization increases so does the amount of chemicals in our water supply. As industrialization creates more compounds and chemicals that can be spilled or used in construction, these same chemicals are being increased in our water supplies such as magnesium and calcium (Kaur). Most of these chemicals come from construction waste or from power plants that use bodies of water to dump their waste; the reason industrial waste causes such disastrous problems is because the power plants and other companies don’t take the time to treat the waste and get rid of the harmful pollutants within the waste before dumping it into our water systems (Skariyachan, et al).

Ground and surface water are the main sources for water providers. Many of these nation’s waters are contaminated by pollutants. There are several federal and state regulations to address the issues of pollution of the waterways by industrial and other sources.

As opposed to depending on organisms and their flexibility in achieving bioremediation of polluted environments, plants either alone or in combination with microorganisms have been used for this reason. The idea of utilizing plants to help with the cleanup of contaminated ecosystems is not new. About 300 years ago, plants were proposed for utilization in the treatment of waste water. Vegetation-based bioremediation shows potential for aggregating, immobilizing and changing a low level of persistent contaminants (Rayu et al., 2012). The phytoremediation approach has several advantages including decreased expense, public acceptance and in particular the capacity of simultaneous evacuation of organic and inorganic contaminants. Phytoremediation might additionally be utilized as a last cleaning venture in combination with other microorganism driven treatment technologies, a technique called microbe-assisted phytoremediation. Regardless of its positive aspects, the commercial application of phytoremediation is slow. According to experts (Rayu et al., 2012), this is because of the following limitations: (1) lack of or slow development of plants at polluted locations which results into low viability of phytoremediation, (2) the proficiency is constrained by the diminished capacity of plants to enter in the soil through their root system and access the hazardous wastes, (3) the time needed for viable phytoremediation is frequently long with