Title: Screening of few aquatic floating plants for chromium phytoremediation
Authors: Rupa Chakraborty; Somnath Muherjee; Sunil Kumar
Addresses: Environmental Engineering Division, Civil Engineering Department, Jadavpur University, Kolkata, 700 032, West Bengal, India ' Environmental Engineering Division, Civil Engineering Department, Jadavpur University, Kolkata, 700 032, West Bengal, India ' CSIR-NEERI, Nehru Marg, Nagpur, 440 020, Maharashtra, India
Abstract: Phytoremediation process using hydrophytes emerges as an attractive scientific and engineering tool for the attenuation of metal pollution in the aquatic environment particularly in secondary and tertiary levels of wastewater treatment. The selection of appropriate plants on the basis of maximum uptake potential for engineering application of the process is the key factor. The present study deals with the use of four numbers of aquatic plants viz. Pistia, Salvinia, Spirodela and Lemna to assess their relative adsorptive efficiencies for chromium (VI) removal from synthetic solution. The plants were hydroponically cultured in Hoagland solution and grown in conjunction with chromium (VI) spiked solution. All the plants exhibited the ability to tolerate and uptake chromium. The kinetic data showed their uptake capacity in the order viz. Pistia > Salvinia > Spirodela > Lemna. For an initial concentration of 2 mg/L, Pistia could effectively sorbed 0.0457 mg of Cr(VI) /g of biomass with 68.5% Cr(VI) removal efficiency as compared to Lemna which could least achieve a minimum uptake of 0.0307 mg/g of biomass with 46% removal after 7 days of exposure.
Keywords: chromium (VI); Pistia; Salvinia; Spirodela; Lemna; screening; aquatic floating plants; chromium phytoremediation; hydrophytes; water pollution; wastewater treatment; aquatic plants; chromium removal; sorption; biomass.
DOI: 10.1504/IJETM.2014.061789
International Journal of Environmental Technology and Management, 2014 Vol.17 No.2/3/4, pp.191 - 198
Received: 05 Mar 2013
Accepted: 05 Aug 2013
Published online: 30 Jun 2014 *