Research Projects

Heavy metals are a significant marker of harmful compounds generated by industrial activities, with their environmental impacts being significant and long-lasting. Unlike organic debris, which can be transformed by incineration or biodegradation, heavy metals are difficult to tackle. Uranium is considered one of the most dangerous metal contaminants due to its chemical and radiological toxicity. Microorganisms are sensitive environmental stress indicators, playing a significant role in energy flow, nutrient cycling, and organic matter recycling in soil ecosystems. They may also serve as nitrogen suppliers, humification, pollutant degradation, and soil structure maintenance. The proposed project aims to determine the amounts of selected heavy metals (ppm) in groundwater and soil around uranium mining locations, develop a process to remove heavy metals from drinking water and soil, quantify the process of heavy metal removal by microbes from soil and dilute aqueous solutions containing more than one metal, characterize the diversity and composition of bacterial communities in uranium mines, and develop a process to remove heavy metals from drinking water and soil. Heavy metal bioremediation is a novel therapeutic approach for extracting heavy metals from polluted soils using chelating agents. The project aims to present the findings of an evaluation of environmental contamination produced by industrial operations, focusing on uranium mining polluted areas, through an in-depth investigation of basic approaches and relevant databases.