Note
Toxic heavy metals contamination is often detected in wetlands,
impoundments, estuaries, coastal areas and other ecosystems. The sources of
metal contamination are usually from marina or harbor activities, boat and shipping
industry, canal run-off, sewage effluent, industrial waste discharge, etc.
Conventional remediation methods such as precipitation chemical oxidation or
reduction, ion exchange, filtration, membrane technologies or evaporation process
are generally impractical or ineffective to be applied in an ecosystem. The use of
living plant biomass for removing metals from an ecosystem provides a potential for
cleanup of the wetland or estuarine coastal environments.