Enhancing phytoremediation of soils polluted with heavy metals

Environmental pollution with heavy metals continues to affect soil quality and crops yields. Among remediation solutions, biotechnology offers a number of environmentally friendly options, one of which is phytoremediation. The use of plants as hyperaccumulators for heavy metal ions is beneficial in terms of feasibility, costs, but has the disadvantage that plants may be affected by heavy metals toxicity. Also, heavy metals are often found in soil in less bioavailable forms to be extracted by plant roots. To overcome these shortcomings, various techniques have been proposed to intensify and accelerate the phytoremediation. They are analyzed and concisely described in this paper, emphasizing how these techniques can act to increase plant tolerance to the toxicity of heavy metal ions and can change the conditions in the rhizosphere area to favor heavy metals extraction and the transport in the roots and their translocation towards the aerial parts of the plant.