Biological Remediation of Heavy Metals from Acid Mine Drainage—Recent Advancements

Industrial operations often generate solid and liquid wastes, a potential carrier of heavy metals and prone to accumulate in the food chain and contaminate the environment. Mine tailings are one of the most contributing environmental challenges worldwide, causing the spread of metallic pollutants. Thousands of abandoned mines worldwide generate acid mine drainage (AMD) with extremely high acidity, dissolved metals, and sulfate. Microbes play a crucial part in the genesis of AMD by catalyzing the process through the oxidation of ferrous iron to ferric iron. On the contrary, they help in the precipitation and removal of heavy metal through different physicochemical and metabolic activities. Therefore, in-depth knowledge is needed to understand the microbial activities to mitigate AMD through bioremediation. The present chapter attempts to understand the recent development in the treatment approaches of AMD using different prokaryotes and eukaryotes, individually or in mixed cultures. From the latest research globally, it is understood that the trend is shifted to apply bioremediation to remove, recover, and reuse the metals and implement co-treatment using organic waste streams to get the mutual benefit of treating different wastes together in a single system.