Heavy metal contamination has increased rapidly since the early 20th century. A Large part of the world has been contaminated by organic and inorganic pollutants. Phytoremediation involves the use of plants to remove, transfer, stabilize and/or degrade contaminants in soil, sediment, and water. This plant-based technology has gained acceptance in the past ten years as a cheap, efficient and environmentally friendly technology especially for removing toxic metals. Currently, 6-8 billion US dollars are spent annually for environmental cleanup alone in the United States and worldwide it is 25-50 billion US dollars per year. Sebera acuminate and Thlaspi caerulescens (Cunningham and Ow 1996), Arabidopsis thaliana (Delhaize 1996), Typha latifolia, and Phragmites australis (Ye et al., 2001) are some identified plants which are known for heavy metals accumulation in their tissues. | Phytoremediation A plant - based technology
