Phytoremediation of sewage sludge in soils contaminated with heavy metals

Abstract

The main source of heavy metals in most soils is sewage sludge. Naturally, the heavy metals in soils are transported to vegetations and cultivated crops. These pollutants need to be either reduced or eliminated in the soil to remediate the effects to man, animals, plants, soils, and groundwater. Hence, Jatropha curcas seedlings were planted on six different media to determine the concentration of heavy metals. Thereafter, it was discovered that Jatropha curcas plants through their roots, stems and leaves metabolism, morphology and mechanisms can reduce the concentration of heavy metals like Zinc, Lead, Chromium, Cadmium, and Copper etc effectively from any medium containing 100% sewage sludge. Thus, it was discovered that Jatropha curcas plant is suitable as a phytoremediator of heavy metals in soils.

Phytoextraction from Chromium-Contaminated Soil Using Moso Bamboo in Mediterranean Conditions

“…This could indicate that 84 days of Cr poisoning is not enough to exceed the tolerance limit of the roots and rhizomes, thus allowing the translocation of the metal in the aerial part (Shanker Aruna et al 2005;Shehata et al 2019). Having found chromium principally in the roots and rhizomes, it is confirmed that Moso bamboo concentrates chromium in the rhizome-root system by limiting transport in the aerial parts, parts included in the animal and human food chain (Vernay et al 2007;Gopal et al 2009;Awalla 2013;Shahid et al 2017). In Fig. 14, the distribution of the chromium in bamboo tissues is reported for pots 1-4: for pots 1-2, 142 mg Cr is in the rhizomes, 36 mg Cr in the roots, 14 mg Cr in stems, and 12 mg Cr in the leaves that correspond to 69% for rhizomes, 18% for roots, 7% for stems, and 6% for leaves.…”

Phytoextraction of Cr(VI)-Contaminated Soil by Phyllostachys pubescens: A Case Study

“…The Cr concentrations in the aerial parts of the plants were found to be low; this could be due to the fact that the poisoning period was insufficient to exceed the tolerance limit of the roots and rhizomes and therefore did not allow the time necessary for the translocation of the metal to the outer parts [59]. The higher concentration of metal in the roots and rhizomes confirmed that MB concentrates Cr principally in the rhizome-root system by limiting transport to the aerial parts-parts included in the animal and human food chain [60][61][62][63]. In Figure 8a,b, the distribution of the Cr in the bamboo tissues is shown for 600 mm/y and 1800 mm/y, respectively.…”