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Phytoextraction of Heavy Metals: A Promising Tool for Clean-Up of Polluted Environment?

Pollution by heavy metals (HM) represents a serious threat for both the environment and human health. Due to their elemental character, HM cannot be chemically degraded, and their detoxification in the environment mostly resides either in stabilization in situ or in their removal from the matrix, e....

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Autores principales: Suman, Jachym, Uhlik, Ondrej, Viktorova, Jitka, Macek, Tomas
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2018
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6232834/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30459775
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpls.2018.01476
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author Suman, Jachym
Uhlik, Ondrej
Viktorova, Jitka
Macek, Tomas
author_facet Suman, Jachym
Uhlik, Ondrej
Viktorova, Jitka
Macek, Tomas
author_sort Suman, Jachym
collection PubMed
description Pollution by heavy metals (HM) represents a serious threat for both the environment and human health. Due to their elemental character, HM cannot be chemically degraded, and their detoxification in the environment mostly resides either in stabilization in situ or in their removal from the matrix, e.g., soil. For this purpose, phytoremediation, i.e., the application of plants for the restoration of a polluted environment, has been proposed as a promising green alternative to traditional physical and chemical methods. Among the phytoremediation techniques, phytoextraction refers to the removal of HM from the matrix through their uptake by a plant. It possesses considerable advantages over traditional techniques, especially due to its cost effectiveness, potential treatment of multiple HM simultaneously, no need for the excavation of contaminated soil, good acceptance by the public, the possibility of follow-up processing of the biomass produced, etc. In this review, we focused on three basic HM phytoextraction strategies that differ in the type of plant species being employed: natural hyperaccumulators, fast-growing plant species with high-biomass production and, potentially, plants genetically engineered toward a phenotype that favors efficient HM uptake and boosted HM tolerance. Considerable knowledge on the applicability of plants for HM phytoextraction has been gathered to date from both lab-scale studies performed under controlled model conditions and field trials using real environmental conditions. Based on this knowledge, many specific applications of plants for the remediation of HM-polluted soils have been proposed. Such studies often also include suggestions for the further processing of HM-contaminated biomass, therefore providing an added economical value. Based on the examples presented here, we recommend that intensive research be performed on the selection of appropriate plant taxa for various sets of conditions, environmental risk assessment, the fate of HM-enriched biomass, economical aspects of the process, etc.
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spelling pubmed-62328342018-11-20 Phytoextraction of Heavy Metals: A Promising Tool for Clean-Up of Polluted Environment? Suman, Jachym Uhlik, Ondrej Viktorova, Jitka Macek, Tomas Front Plant Sci Plant Science Pollution by heavy metals (HM) represents a serious threat for both the environment and human health. Due to their elemental character, HM cannot be chemically degraded, and their detoxification in the environment mostly resides either in stabilization in situ or in their removal from the matrix, e.g., soil. For this purpose, phytoremediation, i.e., the application of plants for the restoration of a polluted environment, has been proposed as a promising green alternative to traditional physical and chemical methods. Among the phytoremediation techniques, phytoextraction refers to the removal of HM from the matrix through their uptake by a plant. It possesses considerable advantages over traditional techniques, especially due to its cost effectiveness, potential treatment of multiple HM simultaneously, no need for the excavation of contaminated soil, good acceptance by the public, the possibility of follow-up processing of the biomass produced, etc. In this review, we focused on three basic HM phytoextraction strategies that differ in the type of plant species being employed: natural hyperaccumulators, fast-growing plant species with high-biomass production and, potentially, plants genetically engineered toward a phenotype that favors efficient HM uptake and boosted HM tolerance. Considerable knowledge on the applicability of plants for HM phytoextraction has been gathered to date from both lab-scale studies performed under controlled model conditions and field trials using real environmental conditions. Based on this knowledge, many specific applications of plants for the remediation of HM-polluted soils have been proposed. Such studies often also include suggestions for the further processing of HM-contaminated biomass, therefore providing an added economical value. Based on the examples presented here, we recommend that intensive research be performed on the selection of appropriate plant taxa for various sets of conditions, environmental risk assessment, the fate of HM-enriched biomass, economical aspects of the process, etc. Frontiers Media S.A. 2018-10-16 /pmc/articles/PMC6232834/ /pubmed/30459775 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpls.2018.01476 Text en Copyright © 2018 Suman, Uhlik, Viktorova and Macek. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Plant Science
Suman, Jachym
Uhlik, Ondrej
Viktorova, Jitka
Macek, Tomas
Phytoextraction of Heavy Metals: A Promising Tool for Clean-Up of Polluted Environment?
title Phytoextraction of Heavy Metals: A Promising Tool for Clean-Up of Polluted Environment?
title_full Phytoextraction of Heavy Metals: A Promising Tool for Clean-Up of Polluted Environment?
title_fullStr Phytoextraction of Heavy Metals: A Promising Tool for Clean-Up of Polluted Environment?
title_full_unstemmed Phytoextraction of Heavy Metals: A Promising Tool for Clean-Up of Polluted Environment?
title_short Phytoextraction of Heavy Metals: A Promising Tool for Clean-Up of Polluted Environment?
title_sort phytoextraction of heavy metals: a promising tool for clean-up of polluted environment?
topic Plant Science
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6232834/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30459775
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpls.2018.01476
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