A review of chromite mining in Sukinda Valley of India: impact and potential remediation measures

Abstract

Sukinda Valley, one of the highly polluted areas of the world is generating tons of mining waste and causing serious health and environmental issues in its surroundings. Several reports are available reporting the severity of hexavalent chromium, yet little efforts have been made to address the pollution and its remediation due to a lack of proper remedial measures. The review highlights the pros and cons of various physical, chemical and biological techniques used worldwide for the treatment of chromium waste and also suggests better and reliable bioremediation measures. Microbes such as Acidophilium and Acidithiobacillus caldus (Bioleaching), Pseudomonas, Micrococcus and Bacillus (Bioreduction), Aereobacterium and Saccharomyces (Biosorption), are widely used for bioremediation of hexavalent chromium owing to their unique metabolic activities, ionic movement through an extracellular membrane, and other cellular adsorptions and reduction properties. The use of native and hybrid combinations of microbes supported by organic supplements is projected as a fast and efficient technique that not only reduces chromium quantity but also maintains the integrity of the microbial sources. Innovation and emphasis on nano-based products like nanocomposite, nano adsorbent, nanoscale zerovalent iron (nZVI) particles and multifunctional plant-growth-promoting bacteria (PGPB) will serve as the next generation environmental remediation technologies in the near future.

Keywords:

• Bioremediation
• chromite mining
• nanotechnology
• nanozerovalent iron
• phytoremediation
• Sukinda Valley
• treatment technologies

Acknowledgments

The authors thank the Department of Biotechnology and Medical Engineering and the Department of Electrical Engineering of National Institute of Technology Rourkela, India for providing the research facility.

Additional information

Funding

The authors gratefully acknowledge the Department of Science and Technology (DST), India for funding the research under DST-WTI (Water Technology Initiative) [WTI/2015/113].