Abstract
Jatropha curcas has the ability to phytoextract high amounts of heavy metals during its first months just after seeding. Notwithstanding, there is scarce information about metal uptake by adult J. curcas plants. To shed light on this issue, 4-year-old J. curcas L. plants were planted in a soil mixture of peat moss and mining soil (high metals content), and the biomass growth and metal absorption during 90 days were compared with those of plants growing in peat moss. The main metal found in the mining soil was Fe (31985 mg kg−1) along with high amounts of As (23717 mg kg−1). After the 90-day phytoremediation, the plant removed 29% of Fe and 44% of As from the soil mixture. Results revealed that J. curcas L. translocated high amounts of metals to its aerial parts, so that translocation factors were much higher than 1. Because of the high translocation and bioaccumulation factors obtained, J. curcas L. can be regarded as a hyperaccumulator plant. Despite the great capacity of J. curcas L. to phytoremediate heavy-metal-contaminated soils, the main drawback is the subsequent handling of the metal-contaminated biomass, although some potential applications have been recently highlighted for this biomass.
Highlights
Soil contamination caused by heavy metals such as As, Cd, Cr, Cu, Pb and Zn remains as a critical environmental problem that negatively affects ecosystems and, as a consequence, human health [1].The mining and mineral processing of sulphide ore deposits are one of the main anthropogenic sources of heavy metals in soils [2]
We found that J. curcas L. absorbed huge amounts of Fe (> 3000 mg Fe kg−1 plant), which was the main metal found in the soils
Due to the extremely high metal concentration of the mine soil, and based on a previous research [11], a soil mixture (CS) containing 20% mine soil and 80% peat moss was selected to study the metal uptake by J. curcas L., and the results were compared with the metal uptake of plant grown in peat moss (NCS)
Summary
Soil contamination caused by heavy metals such as As, Cd, Cr, Cu, Pb and Zn remains as a critical environmental problem that negatively affects ecosystems and, as a consequence, human health [1]. The mining and mineral processing of sulphide ore deposits are one of the main anthropogenic sources of heavy metals in soils [2]. Phytoremediation is a type of bioremediation that involves plants degrading or immobilizing contaminants in soil and groundwater. This may improve soil fertility and increase organic matter content [4,5]. There are six main types of phytoremediation: phytostabilization (phytosequestration), rhizodegradation, phytohydraulics, phytoextraction (phytoaccumulation), phytovolatilization and phytodegradation. Phytostabilization is the most suitable technique for mining soils, since it involves metal absorption by roots and immobilization inside them.
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