Phytoextraction: A Cost-E Ective Plant-Based Technology For The Removal of Metals From The Environment
Phytoextraction: A Cost-E Ective Plant-Based Technology For The Removal of Metals From The Environment
Phytoextraction: A Cost-E Ective Plant-Based Technology For The Removal of Metals From The Environment
Review paper
Abstract
Phytoremediation is an emerging technology that uses plants to clean up pollutants (metals and organics) from the environment.
Within this eld of phytoremediation, the utilization of plants to transport and concentrate metals from the soil into the harvestable
parts of roots and above-ground shoots is usually called phytoextraction. Most traditional remediation methods do not provide
acceptable solutions for the removal of metals from soils. By contrast, phytoextraction of metals is a cost-eective approach that
uses metal-accumulating plants to clean up these soils. Subsequently, the harvestable parts, rich in accumulated metals, can be easily
and safely processed by drying, ashing or composting. Some extracted metals can also be reclaimed from the ash, generating recycling revenues. Phytoextraction appears a very promising technology for the removal of metal pollutants from the environment
and may be, at present, approaching comercialization. 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Phytoextraction; Metal; Phytoremediation; Soil pollution
0960-8524/01/$ - see front matter 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
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moval of these pollutants from the environment (Garbisu and Alkorta, 1997), it is certainly not less true that
when considering the remediation of a metal-polluted
soil, metal-accumulating plants oer numerous advantages over microbial processes since plants can actually
extract metals from the polluted soils, theoretically
rendering them clean (metal-free soils). In fact, although
a wide variety of bacterial, fungal, algal and plant systems are capable of concentrating toxic metals from
their surroundings, so far no cost-eective way exists to
retrieve small organisms from the soil (Ow, 1996).
Therefore, and in relation to the bioremediation of
heavy metals, microorganisms have been mostly used to
treat industrial waste streams, with the organisms either
immobilized onto dierent support matrixes or in a freeliving state, enclosed in treatment tanks or other kinds
of reactor vessels. Subsequently, the metal-loaded biomass can be either disposed of appropriately or, depending on their concentrations, treated to recover the
metals. In the environment, as is the case for the in situ
bioremediation systems, bacteria are not eective as a
permanent, large-scale solution to heavy metal-polluted
areas, since this implies the ultimate removal of the
contaminated biomass from the site. As a consequence,
application of microbial bioremediation to the in situ
removal of heavy metals from polluted soils is mainly
limited to metal immobilization by precipitation or reduction (Summers, 1992).
Phytoremediation is also preferable to currently used
approaches for treating soils such as landlling, xation,
leaching, etc., since it reclaims soil at the site, recycling it
in a biologically safe state rather than permanently
disposing of it by removal to a storage site (Salt et al.,
1995).
3. Phytoremediation
3.1. General aspects of phytoremediation
Phytoremediation, dened as the use of green plants
to remove pollutants from the environment or to render
them harmless (Cunningham and Berti, 1993; Raskin
et al., 1994), is being considered as a new highly promising technology for the remediation of polluted sites.
Phytoremediation is often also referred as botanicalbioremediation or green remediation (Chaney et al.,
1997). This technology can be applied to both organic
and inorganic pollutants present in soil (solid substrate),
water (liquid substrate) or the air (Salt et al., 1998). In
this respect, plants can be compared to solar driven
pumps which can extract and concentrate certain elements from their environment (Salt et al., 1995). However, the ability to accumulate heavy metals varies
signicantly between species and between cultivars
within a species.
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Curiously enough, the capacity of plants to concentrate metals has usually been considered a detrimental
trait since some plants are directly or indirectly responsible for a proportion of the dietary uptake of toxic
heavy metals by humans (Brown et al., 1994; Cunningham et al., 1995). Dietary intake of heavy metals
through consumption of crop plants can have long-term
eects on human health (Ow, 1996). Naturally occurring
plants called ``metal hyperaccumulators'' can accumulate 10500 times higher levels of elements than crops
(Chaney et al., 1997). According to Raskin et al. (1997),
the degree of accumulation of metals such as Ni, Zn,
and possibly Cu, observed in hyperaccumulators, often
reaches 15% of their dry weight (an order of magnitude
higher than those concentrations found in non-accumulating plants growing nearby). Unfortunately, most
hyperaccumulators are relatively small in size, have slow
growth rates and we lack the technology for their largescale cultivation (Salt et al., 1995; Raskin et al., 1997).
The annual yields in biomass of hyperaccumulators are
generally one to two orders of magnitude lower than
those of robust crop plants (Ow, 1996). Therefore, a lot
of research emphasis has been placed on the evaluation
of the metal-accumulating capacity of high biomass
plants that can be easily cultivated using established
agronomic practices. In this respect, many authors have
studied the metal-uptake capabilities of the cultivated
Brassica (mustard) species because of their relation to
wild metal-accumulating mustards (Kumar et al., 1995).
Either the existing hyperaccumulator plants must be
bred for increased growth and biomass, or hyperaccumulation traits must be engineered into fast growing,
high biomass plants (Ow, 1996). However, according to
some authors (Chaney et al., 1997), natural metal hyperaccumulator phenotype appears to be much more
important than high yield ability when using plants to
remediate metal-contaminated soils.
The prevention of herbivory and disease is thought to
be the main function of this unique phenomenon of
hyperaccumulation (Baker and Brooks, 1989; Ernst
et al., 1990; Boyd and Martens, 1994, 1995; Boyd et al.,
1994).
As pointed out in the excellent review by Salt et al.
(1998) there are, at present, two strategies of phytoextraction: (1) chelate-assisted or induced phytoextraction
and (2) continuous phytoextraction.
4.1. Chelate-assisted or induced phytoextraction
Chelating agents have been used as soil extractants, a
source for micronutrient fertilizers, and to maintain
solubility of micronutrients in hydroponic solutions
(Salt et al., 1995). As pointed out by its name, this
strategy of phytoextraction is based on the fact that the
application of metal chelates to the soil signicantly
enhances metal accumulation by plants. This is due to
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