Abstract
Potential of plants to uptake metals from soil solution can be successfully applied for removal of long-lived radionuclides such as radiostrontium 90Sr or radiocaesium 137Cs. This work deals with bioaccumulation of Cs in tobacco plants (Nicotiana tabacum L.) hydroponically grown in diluted Hoagland media (HM) spiked with 137CsCl. Speciation analysis using a program Visual MINTEQ showed, that more than 97% of caesium in HM occurred in the form of Cs+ ions. We found that bioaccumulation of Cs significantly decreased from the value 100% to the value 20% removing of Cs from media after 8 days cultivation of plants with increasing HM concentration. However, the concentration ratio (CR) [Cs]shoot : [Cs]root increased with increasing HM concentration from the value 0.10 to the value 0.85. Bioaccumulation of Cs by tobacco plants significantly decreased with increasing CsCl concentration in media from the value 95% found at concentration of CsCl 10 μmol/dm3 to the value 44% at concentration of CsCl 1 000 μmol/dm3. We did not found visual symptoms of Cs toxicity on plants after 8 days cultivation or significant differences in growth rate or transpiration activity at CsCl concentration up to 0.2 mM. However, at > 0.2 mM CsCl concentration the decrease of growth rate and necrosis of young leaves or die-back of leaves (> 2 mM CsCl) were observed. The CR ([Cs]shoot : [Cs]root) increased with increasing concentration of CsCl (10 – 1 000 μmol/dm3) in media from the value 0.10 to the value 0.40. The obtained data suggest that fast growing plant species with high biomass production like tobacco might be a suitable in phytoextraction or rhizofiltration technologies used for 137Cs removing from environment.
Highlights
The presence of radionuclides in soil and water exposes the stability of ecosystem and poses serious risk to human health through the food chain
In this work we present results from studying of effect of macro- and microelements as well as CsCl concentration on bioaccumulation and translocation of caesium in tissues of tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum L.) cultivated in nutrient media spiked with 137CsCl
In this work we found that percentual content of Cs in root, stem and leaves are affected with Hoagland media (HM) concentration i.e. macro- and microelements concentrations
Summary
The presence of radionuclides in soil and water exposes the stability of ecosystem and poses serious risk to human health through the food chain. Radionuclides can enter to the environment from natural or artificial sources. The artificial sources of radionuclides in the environment represent: testing of nuclear weapons, nuclear waste disposal, accidents resulting from nuclear power generation as well as manipulation with nuclear fuel (see e.g. HU et al, 2010). Contamination caused by long-lived radionuclides, 137Cs and 90Sr, poses a long-term environmental problem. Caesium can exist in at least 39 isotopes forms, mostly within the range of atomic masses 112Cs to 151Cs. Of these, the two Cs isotopes are of environmental concern owing to their rapid incorporation into biological systems as physico-chemical analogue of potassium, their relatively long half-lives and emissions of βand γ-radiation during decay, are 134Cs (τ = 2.06 y) and 137Cs (τ = 30.2 y) (WHITE and BROADLEY, 2000)
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