a b s t r a c t
Remediation of soil contaminated with heavy metals has received considerable attention in recent years. In thisstudy,the heavy metal uptake potential of the mushroom, Galerina vittiformis, was studied in soil artificially contaminated withCu(II),Cd(II),Cr(VI),Pb(II)and Zn(II)atconcentrations of50and 100mg/kg. G. vittiformis was found to be effective in removing the metals from soil within30days.The bioaccumulation factor(BAF)for both mycelia and fruiting bodies with respect to these heavy metals at 50 mg/kg concentrations were found to be greater thanone,indicating hyper accumulating nature by the mushroom. The metal removal rates by G. vittiformis was analyzed using different kinetic rate constants and found to follow the second order kinetic rate equation except for Cd(II),which followed the first order rate kinetics.