Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Abstract
The use of plants to remove toxic metals from soil (phytoremediation) is emerging as a cost-effective alternative to conventional
methods. Because contaminants such as lead have limited bioavailability in the soil, methods to facilitate its transport to the
shoots and roots of plants are required to the success of phytoremediation. Indian mustard (Brassica juncea) has been shown to
be effective at accumulating high tissue concentrations of lead when grown in contaminated soil with the addition of a chelating
agent, such as EDTA. The addition of an electric field around the plants is an alternative approach to increase the uptake of lead.
In this work, bench scale studies illustrated the application of electrodic phytoremediation with EDTA for lead using Indian
mustard. The effects of a range of parameters such as operating currentyvoltage with different concentrations, application time of
EDTA and electric potential, and daily application time of electric potential were studied. The accumulation of lead in the shoots
using 0.5 mmolykg EDTA with electric potential increased by two- to four-fold compared to the use of EDTA only. The maximum
lead accumulation in the shoots was obtained with the application of electric field 1 h per day for 9 days with EDTA.
2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Soil; Lead; ICP-OES; Electrodics and electrokinetics; EDTA; Phytoremediation; Indian mustard (Brassica juncea)
1. Introduction
Soils may be polluted by a wide range of contaminants from industrial activities, sewage sludge disposal,
metal processing, and energy production. In many cases,
conventional remediation approaches, involving replacement of contaminated soil with clean soil, is both
expensive and intrusive to the ecosystem. Phytoremediation is the use of plants and plant processes to remove,
degrade, or render harmless hazardous materials present
in the soil or groundwater w1,2x. This emerging technology may offer a cost-effective, non-intrusive and safe
alternative to conventional soil cleanup techniques.
Phytoremediation developed from the study of heavy
metal tolerance in plants in the late 1980s. The discovery
of hyperaccumulator plants, which may accumulate levels of contaminants that are toxic to other plants,
*Corresponding author. Tel.: q1-828-227-3683; fax: q1-828-2277647.
E-mail address: butcher@email.wcu.edu (D. J. Butcher).
1
Present address: Department of Chemistry, Mercer University,
1400 Coleman Ave, Macon, GA 31207, USA.
0026-265X/04/$ - see front matter 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.microc.2003.10.002
Table 1
Operating conditions for ICP-OES
Model
Power
Frequency
Ar flow rates:
Nebulizer gas
Auxiliary gas
Plasma gas
Emission line:
Pb
As
The concentrations of lead and arsenic were determined as a function of location and depth at the
sampling site at Barber Orchard (Fig. 1b). The results
are summarized in Table 2, where the values are
expressed as the mean"S.D. (ns3). The concentration
of lead with depth of sampling ranged from 71.1 to 473
mgykg in the upper soil (015 cm) and from 25.8 to
202 mgykg in the lower soil (1530 cm). Arsenic
concentrations varied from 32.9 to 282 mgykg in the
top soil and from 13.6 to 87.1 mgykg in the bottom
soil. The highest lead and arsenic levels were determined
at the same location. In general, higher lead and arsenic
concentrations occurred near the surface.
In order to evaluate the efficiency of phytoremediation, it was necessary to homogenize the soil. Fig. 3
shows that nearly identical concentrations levels of lead
and arsenic were present in each pot, demonstrating the
effectiveness of the homogenization procedure. The
average concentrations of lead and arsenic were determined to be 341"12 mgykg and 103"5 mgykg,
respectively.
Table 2
Determination of lead and arsenic in soil samples from the Barber Orchard lot in Fig. 1b
Element
Row
Concentration (mgykg)(mean"S.D.)
Column 1
Column 2
Column 3
Column 4
Column 5
Column 6
Column 7
Lead
Upper 1
Lower 1
Upper 2
Lower 2
Upper 3
Lower 3
179"21
49.5"6.3
125"9
25.8"1.9
473"17
102"6
184"8
54.1"2.4
254"7
70.5"2.4
256"16
31.9"1.5
71.1"6.9
29.5"2.6
396"17.6
137"13
107"14
32.6"3.8
149"15
132"9
130"10
152"5
266"17
202"12
291"25
33.9"5.8
569"26
45.1"2.4
205"18
161"6
287"16
40.1"2.6
285"14
190"15
273"26
189"18
154"11
49.7"7.4
138"13
35.6"6.4
99.3"8.2
104"10
Arsenic
Upper 1
Lower 1
Upper 2
Lower 2
Upper 3
Lower 3
51.0"8.8
19.3"0.7
50.0"2.1
14.4"0.2
282"9
51.7"2.7
62.3"8.6
22.5"1.1
85.3"6.8
27.6"3.5
96.8"6.4
20.9"1.6
34.8"4.9
15.5"1.8
164"14
59.7"8.6
46.3"3.5
17.8"2.4
52.5"2.9
49.1"4.8
46.1"2.6
50.7"5.1
88.2"1.6
83.7"5.6
104"8
16.7"0.7
229"17
22.0"1.3
103"5
87.1"7.2
95.5"12.5
18.0"2.9
126"6
85.1"6.8
90.3"4.1
67.9"9.7
54.1"2.4
20.4"1.8
42.0"3.7
13.6"0.7
32.9"3.2
36.6"5.9
Fig. 4. The effect of the amount of EDTA added upon lead accumulation in Indian mustard: (a) shoots and (b) roots. The plants were
harvested 7 days after the application of EDTA. Values represent the
mean"S.D. of three replicates from four plants.
Fig. 5. The effect of operating voltage and EDTA concentrations upon lead accumulation in Indian mustard: (a) shoots and (b) roots. The current
measured during application of the electric field is shown in (c). Values represent the mean"S.D. of three replicates from three plants.
References
w1x I. Raskin, B.D. Ensley, Phytoremediation of Toxic Metals:
Using Plants to Clean up the Environment, John Wiley, New
York, 2000.
w2x N. Terry, G.S. Banuelos, Phytoremediation of Contaminated
Soil and Water, Lewis Publishers, Boca Raton, 2000.
w3x S.D. Ebbs, L.V. Kochian, Environ. Sci. Technol. 32 (1998)
802806.
w4x G. Sarret, J. Vangronsveld, A. Manceau, M. Musso, J. DHaen,
J.-J. Menthonnex, et al., Environ. Sci. Technol. 35 (2001)
28542859.
w5x S.N. Whiting, J.R. Leake, S.P. Mcgrath, A.J.M. Baker, Environ.
Sci. Technol. 35 (2001) 32373241.
w6x M.B. McBride, Environmental Chemistry of Soils, Oxford
University Press, New York, 1994.
w7x J.W. Huang, M.J. Blaylock, Y. Kapulnik, B.D. Ensley, Environ.
Sci. Technol. 32 (1998) 20042008.
w8x P.B.A.N. Kumar, V. Dushenkov, H. Motto, I. Raskin, Environ.
Sci. Technol. 29 (1995) 12321238.
w9x S.D. Ebbs, M.M. Lasat, D.J. Brady, J. Cornish, R. Gordon,
L.V. Kochian, J. Environ. Qual. 26 (1997) 14241430.
w10x D.E. Salt, I.J. Pickering, R.C. Prince, D. Gleba, S. Duchenkov,
R.D. Smith, et al., Environ. Sci. Technol. 31 (1997)
16361644.
w11x J.W. Huang, J. Chen, W.R. Berti, S.D. Cunningham, Environ.
Sci. Technol. 31 (1997) 800805.
w12x M.J. Blaylock, D.E. Salt, S. Dushenkov, O. Zakharova, C.
Gussman, Y. Kapulnik, et al., Environ. Sci. Technol. 31 (1997)
860865.
w13x J. Wu, F.C. Hsu, S.D. Cunningham, Environ. Sci. Technol. 33
(1999) 18981904.
w14x A.L. Salido, K.L. Hasty, J.-M. Lim, D.J. Butcher, Int. J.
Phytoremediation 5 (2003) in press.
w15x R.N. Yong, Geoenvironmental Engineering: Contaminated
Soils, Pollutant Fate and Mitigation, CRC Press, Boca Raton,
2001.
w16x Y.B. Acar, A.N. Alshawabkeh, Environ. Sci. Technol. 27
(1993) 26382647.
w17x A.N. Alshawabkeh, A.T. Yeung, M.R. Bricka, J. Environ. Eng.
125 (1999) 2735.
w18x A.N. Alshawabkeh, R.J. Gale, E. Ozsu-Acar, R.M. Bricka, J.
Soil Contam. 8 (1999) 617635.