The Role of Metals in the Development of Human Civilization

For over 5,000 years metals have been playing an important role for the development of human civilization. The combined properties of metals in both durability and strength surpass many other materials discovered so far. With relatively low cost of production and ease of availability, they remain as the material of choice for different applications from jewelry making and creating weapons for war in medieval ages to nowadays sky rise building constructions, and metals are still widely used in today’s numerous applications (Harold, 2010). Although metals possess many advantages for different means of utilization, the toxicity of different metals are gradually discovered which give human health problems and different environmental issues. Toxic metals refer to metals which are not essential minerals having no biological role or in the wrong form, and form soluble poisonous compounds, while insoluble ones usually have negligible poisonous since toxicity are a function of solubility (Singh, 2005a). Usually toxic metals interfere with metabolic activities by imitating essential elements in our body, thus causing health problems (Singh, 2005a). Sources of toxic metals in the environment mainly include industrial effluents, refuse burning, transportation and power generation (Agarwal, 2009). 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