8. Removal of Heavy Metals From Contaminated Water Using Hydroponics

Since numerous pollution sources considerably contribute to poor water quality, the availability of potable and high-quality drinking water is a severe global concern. Several of these pollution sources are spreading a variety of dangerous substances into different environmental and water matrices. Among the significant environmental contaminants are heavy metals. Even if there are already a number of techniques for getting rid of these toxins, the most of them are expensive and challenging to use effectively. There are, sadly, not many eco-friendly solutions that can be used to exclusively treat contaminated environments. As a result, exposure to heavy metals in water causes a variety of illnesses in people, including cytotoxicity and cardiac ailments. Currently, phytoremediation, phytoaccumulation and phyto-stabilization are emerging, effective and affordable technological solution used to extract or remove inactive metals and metal pollutants from contaminated water. These technologies have the potential to be economically and ecologically sound. In hydroponics, plants are grown without soil using a water-based nutrient solution. Growing medium used in this method can include aggregate substrates like vermiculite, coconut coir, or perlite. Using hyperaccumulating plants, this method can also be used to successfully remove heavy metals from contaminated water. Recent advances in biotechnology are expected to play a promising role in the development of new hyperaccumulators by transferring metal hyperaccumulating genes from low biomass wild species to the higher biomass producing cultivated species in the times to come.