“…The discharge of effluents containing pollutants generated from different anthropogenic activities, such as heavy metals, nitrates, phosphates, into water courses constitutes a serious environmental problem which affects water quality. It is well recognized that concentrations of these species above the admissible threshold in aquatic environments cause harmful effects on humans and a variety of other living species because of their toxicity, persistence, and accumulation in living tissues throughout the food chain [7,12]. Heavy and/or toxic metals are present in raw wastewater streams from several industries such as plating plants, batteries, welding, and alloys manufacturing, nonferrous metals mineral processing, dye industries, porcelain enameling, and steamelectric power plants [114][115][116][117].…”