Environmental bio-engineering technology is a new discipline which integrates living materials mainly plants and micro-organism to address the problems of environmental management and sustainable development. An emerging solution for this problem is phytoremediation, which consists of these uses of plants, usually as a part of reclamation programmes to remove contain inactive or degrade harmful environmental contaminants. Phytoremediaion is a fast developing field and since last ten years lots of field application were initiated all over the world. It includes phytoremediation of organic, inorganic and radionuclides. This sustainable and inexpensive is fast emerging as a viable alternative conventional remediation methods and will be suitable for a developing country like India. In recent years scientist and engineers have started to generate cost effective that include use of plants to clean up the environment. Successful application of phytoremediation however depends upon various factors which must be carefully investigated and properly considered for specific site condition and their potential to use in environmental cleanup. Phytoremediation is a group of technologies that use plants to reduce, degrade, or immobilize environmental toxins, primarily those of anthropogenic origin, with the aim to clean-up contaminated areas. In this review paper, different types of phytoremediation processes and their application for clean-up of metal contaminated sites were reviewed.
