Review Article

A Review on Heavy Metals (As, Pb, and Hg) Uptake by Plants through Phytoremediation

Table 1

Definition of phytoremediation.

No.ResearchersDefinition of phytoremediation

(1)[30]The use of plants to improve degraded environments
(2)[31]The use of plants, including trees and grasses, to remove, destroy or sequester hazardous contaminants from media such as air, water, and soil
(3)[24]The use of plants to remediate toxic chemicals found in contaminated soil, sludge, sediment, ground water, surface water, and wastewater
(4)[32]An emerging technology using specially selected and engineered metal accumulating plants for environmental cleanup
(5)[33]The use of vascular plants to remove pollutants from the environment or to render them harmless
(6)[3]The engineered use of green plant to remove, contain, or render harmless such environmental contaminants as heavy metals, trace elements, organic compounds, and radioactive compounds in soil or water. This definition includes all plant-influenced biological, chemical, and physical processes that aid in the uptake, sequestration, degradation, and metabolism of contaminants, either by plants or by the free-living organisms that constitute the plant rhizosphere
(7)[29]Phytoremediation is the name given to a set of technologies that use different plants as a containment, destruction, or an extraction technique. Phytoremediation is an emerging technology that uses various plants to degrade, extract, contain, or immobilize contaminants from soil and water
(8)[34]Phytoremediation in general implies the use of plants (in combination with their associated microorganisms) to remove, degrade, or stabilize contaminants