The presence of heavy metals in the environment represents a serious environmental and health problem. In the assessment of environmental pollution, as well as in pollution prevention and cleaning of the polluted environment, natural and controlled processes such as biosorption and bioaccumulation started to be successfully used. These environmentally friendly processes are becoming a new alternative for the removal of heavy metals from aqueous solutions, since they proved to involve lower operating costs and high efficiency in removing toxic metals from the environmental compartments. The natural ability of dead and living biomass is successfully used to sequester heavy metals. Although biosorption is a promising method for environmental bioremediation, its mechanism is not well understood, because it highly depends on the biomass characteristics, heavy metal properties and operating conditions. All types of biomass have the ability to bind heavy metals, in different extent though, depending on morphology and physiology of an organism. The efficiency of this kind of processes can be greatly improved if are performed in controlled conditions. In order to design a complete technique regarding the biosorption and bioaccumulation processes and to make a practical use of it, it would be indispensable to understand their mechanism, rules that govern them, how to model their kinetics and equilibrium. This paper reviews some of the most important issues regarding biosorption and bioaccumulation processes, pointing out on their basic assumptions and goals, future prospects and practical applications. In our researches, for example, we found that immobilization of Arthrobacter visosus in the form of a biofilm on a polymeric matrix offers a greater potential for large scale application of biosorption in fluidized systems. The uptake of total Cr, Cd(II) and Pb(II) bound to the biofilm at a flow rate of 10 mL/ min and working with 25 mg/L metal solution was, at the end of contact time 20.37 mg/g, 46.53 mg/g and respectively 6.21 mg/g. Considering these aspects, the biosorption abilities of bacterial and fungal biomass towards metal ions are emphasized. Moreover, the ability of other kinds of biosorbents (agricultural wastes and algae) is discussed in terms of uptake capacities and removal efficiencies considering our own results and the scientific data found in literature.