Abstract
The potentials of the invasive duckweed species, Lemna paucicostata to remove pollutants from aquatic environment was tested in a constructed wetlands as an ecological based system for the phytoremediation of petroleum hydrocarbons in crude oil-contaminated waters within 120 days. Total petroleum hydrocarbons in wetlands and tissues of duckweed were analyzed using gas chromatography with flame ionization detector following established methods while the experimental data were subjected to the first-order kinetic rate model to understand the remediation rate of duckweed in wetlands. L. paucicostata effected a significant (F = 253.405, P < 0.05) removal of hydrocarbons from wetlands reaching 97.91% after 120 days. Assessment on the transport and fate of hydrocarbons in duckweed indicated that L. paucicostata bioaccumulated less than 1% and significantly biodegraded 97.74% of hydrocarbons in wetlands at the end of the study. The experimental data reasonably fitted (r2 = 0.938) into the first-order kinetic rate model. From the result of the study, it is reasonable to infer that L. paucicostata is an effective aquatic macrophyte for the removal of petroleum hydrocarbons in moderately polluted waters.
Highlights
The usefulness of plants in the biological remediation of contaminants has been expanding over the years
Duckweeds have a long history of application in aquaculture, livestock production, poultry, pharmaceuticals and cosmetics, medicine, biofuels, toxicity testing, environmental monitoring and for the remediation of organic compounds in contaminated wetlands[11,17,18]
Previous workers have indicated the removal of organic compounds like phenol[22], chlorobenzotriazole[9], benzotriazoles[23] and anthracene, phenanthrene and benzo[a]pyrene[24] by various Lemna species but there is paucity of literature on the removal of petroleum hydrocarbons by L. paucicostata (Hegelm.)
Summary
The usefulness of plants in the biological remediation of contaminants has been expanding over the years. Various macrophytes have been investigated for the uptake, bioaccumulation and degradation of a wide range of chemical pollutants in natural and man-made wetlands[9,11,13,14]. Macrophytes such as duckweeds, water lettuce and water hyacinth found exclusively on the surface of water bodies have been reported to remediate nutrients load, heavy metals and hydrocarbons in wetlands[11]. This study aimed to assess and model the efficacy of duckweed, L. paucicostata for the phytoremediation of crude oil-contaminated waters and to determine the transport and fate of the pollutants in L. paucicostata
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