ABSTRACT
Heavy metal pollution is one of the most important environmental problems today. Various industries, such as mining and smelting of metalliferous, surface fi nishing industry, energy and fuel production, fertilizer and pesticide industry and application, leatherworking, photography, aerospace
1Pilot Plant of Industrial and Microbiological Processes (PROIMI), CONICET. Av. Belgrano y Pasaje Caseros, 4000 Tucumán, Argentina. 2Institute of Microbiology, Friedrich-Schiller-University, Neugasse, 07743 Jena, Germany. 3Natural Sciences College and Miguel Lillo Institute, National University of Tucumán, 4000 Tucumán, Argentina. 4Biochemistry, Chemistry and Pharmacy College, National University of Tucumán, 4000 Tucumán, Argentina. *Corresponding author: jsdavilacosta@gmail.com
and atomic energy installation, etc.; produce and discharge wastes containing different heavy metals into the environment. There is a growing shortage of metals as a kind of resource and this also brings about serious environmental pollution, threatening human health and ecosystem. Three kinds of heavy metals are considered: toxic metals (such as Hg, Cr, Pb, Zn, Cu, Ni, Cd, As, Co, Sn, etc.), precious metals (such as Pd, Pt, Ag, Au, Ru, etc.) and radionuclides (such as U, Th, Ra, Am, etc.) (Wang and Chen 2006).
