Manipulating Soil Metal Availability Using EDTA and Low-Molecular-Weight Organic Acids

Soils can be contaminated with heavy metals from various human activities and a num-ber of ex situ and in situ techniques have been developed to remove heavy metals from contaminated soils. Phytoremediation is a developing technology that aims to extract or inactivate metals, metalloids, and radionuclides in contaminated soils, and chemical enhancements have been used to enhance soil heavy-metal availability to plants. This chapter focuses on synthetic chelates and low-molecular-weight organic acids, in particu-lar induced phytoextraction of heavy metals, the successful cases, the mechanisms of enhancement, and the disadvantages of the method.