Application of surface-active compounds of microbial origin to clean up soils contaminated with heavy metals

Abstract

Faced with more and more stringent regulations, nowadays heavy metals are the environmental priority pollutants and are becoming one of the most serious environmental problems. A variety of remediation technologies are currently available to address these classes of pollutants (Fu and Wang 2011; Yao et al. 2012). However, many of they have several disadvantages such as a high cost and the risk of secondary contamination (de Souza et al. 2013). In this context, new technologies for the reduction of heavy metals to acceptable levels but at more manageable costs are continually being evaluated.