ABSTRACT:
Chromium is one of the most toxic heavy metals which pose a deadly threat to the environment and living organisms including plants, animals and humans. Wastes from a number of industries are the main sources of chromium release in environment leading to the pollution of air, water and soil. The leather tanning industry is largely responsible for tainting the environment with such a harmful element. This leads to economic loss of the nation because of crop contamination as well as health loss among the consumers of contaminated food. An urgent need of checking the sustenance of chromium in the environment for its healthy preservation has come up as a challenge in the recent times. The conventional existing methods mainly rely upon chemical conversion of the toxic Chromium(VI) into the lesser toxic and stable Chromium(III) by methods such as precipitation, ion exchange, membrane technologies, direct recycling approach etc. However, it has now become inevitable to find out newer, more efficient and eco-friendly techniques to serve this purpose. Bioremediation is an appropriate alternative by using of existing microbes in the ecosystem which are either tolerant to chromium or can convert Cr(VI) into Cr(III). These microbes range from bacteria, fungi, algae and even yeasts in some cases. Apart from these, plants have also demonstrated the accumulation of environmental chromium in their tissues, a phenomenon termed as phytoremediation. In this review, we have tried to cover most of the aspects of chromium bioremediation, studies carried on it till now and its possible application for the future remedy techniques for human and environment welfare.