Biological technologies for the remediation of co-contaminated soil

Abstract

Compound contamination in soil, caused by unreasonable waste disposal, has attracted increasing attention on a global scale, particularly since multiple heavy metals and/or organic pollutants are entering natural ecosystem through human activities, causing an enormous threat. The remediation of co-contaminated soil is more complicated and difficult than that of single contamination, due to the disparate remediation pathways utilized for different types of pollutants. Several modern remediation technologies have been developed for the treatment of co-contaminated soil. Biological remediation technologies, as the eco-friendly methods, have received widespread concern due to soil improvement besides remediation. This review summarizes the application of biological technologies, which contains microbial technologies (function microbial remediation and composting or compost addition), biochar, phytoremediation technologies, genetic engineering technologies and biochemical technologies, for the remediation of co-contaminated soil with heavy metals and organic pollutants. Mechanisms of these technologies and their remediation efficiencies are also reviewed. Based on this study, this review also identifies the future research required in this field.

Keywords:

• Soil remediation
• co-contaminated soil
• biological technologies
• mechanisms
• heavy metals
• organic pollutants

Disclosure statement

The authors report no declarations of other interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of this article.

Additional information

Funding

This research was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (51521006, 51479072 and 51378190) and the Program for Changjiang Scholars and Innovative Research Team in University (IRT-13R17).