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Abstract Heavy metal pollution is one of the most important environmental problems today. Various industries produce and discharge wastes containing different heavy metals into the environment, such as mining and smelting of metalliferous, surface finishing industry,energy and fuel production, fertilizer and pesticide industry and application, metallurgy, iron and steel, electroplating, electrolysis, electro-osmosis, leatherworking, photography, electric appliance manufacturing, metal surface treating, aerospace and atomic energy installation etc. Thus, metal as a kind of resource is becoming shortage and also brings about serious environmental pollution, threatening human health and ecosystem. Three kinds of heavy metals are of concern, including 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). |