Remediation Technology for Copper Contaminated Soil: A Review

Copper is a naturally occurring trace element present in all environmental media, including soil, sediment, air and water. It is an essential micronutrient critical for cell function, playing a vital role in processes. Copper contamination to agricultural soils is of great concern due to its wide and continuous use in agriculture and horticulture as fertilizers and fungicide. Copper contaminated soil is mainly attributed to agriculture activities such as continuous application of copper-based fungicides and pesticides application. A minireview was carried out using peer-reviewed articles published from 2000 to 2017, which methods of remediating copper soil. The AGORA and Google Scholar databases were used to conduct the search for articles using the terms copper and phytoremediation, Copper and Biological remediation, Copper and soil washing OR physical methods. Following these searches, 19 journal articles out of a total of 191 articles satisfied criteria for inclusion and were used in the final systematic review. The study showed that remediation technology for copper contaminated soil is divided into physical, chemical and biological categories. Physical methods are laborious and costly but can be applied to highly contaminated site; chemical methods have high efficiency and effective to remove the copper, but mostly popularized in a large scale; bioremediation methods including phytoremediation and microbial remediation are appropriate for large areas of soil contaminated by low concentrations of copper. The bioremediation methods are economical, eco-friendly but time consuming.