Reduction of some Heavy Elements of Agricultural Drainage Water using the Azolla Plant (Azolla)

Abstract

The study was conducted at the Faculty of Science, University of Tikrit and included alaboratory experiments to estimate the proportion of some heavy elements (lead, potassium, cadmium, magnesium, iron) in the biomass ofAzolla pinnata plant to estimate its biocontrol ability to treat agricultural drainage water as samples were taken from the Azolla pinnata cultivated in two different types of agricultural drainage water and Tape water to estimate the percentage of elements before treatment in the water and after it at three periods (21,14,7) days. The results revealed Increasing the concentration of potassium, lead and magnesium elements in the extracted biomass of Azolla pinnata samples after treatmentof agricultural drainage water (1,2) while this increase was slight in tap water, as for cadmium, the results showed a decrease in its concentration in extracted biomass of A. pinnatasamples grown in agricultural drainage water (1,2) and tap water, and that the were non-significant differences (P <0.05) in the concentration ofiron element in extracted plant samples grown in agricultural drainage water1 as it remained at its concentration (2.69 ±0.00) during the three weeks, it also maintained its concentration in the samples of the extracted plant grown in tap water, reaching(2.86 ± 0.00), while the result shows there was a slight decrease in the concentration of Iron inthe extracted plant in treated agricultural drainage water 2, reaching (2.86) in the first week, decreasing to (2.69±0.00) in the second and third week.