You are here:
POTENTIAL SPECIES FOR PHYTOREMEDIATION OF PERCHLORATE. ATHENS, GA: US ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY
Citation:
Susarla, S., S T. Bacchus, S C. McCutcheon, AND N L. Wolfe. POTENTIAL SPECIES FOR PHYTOREMEDIATION OF PERCHLORATE. ATHENS, GA: US ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, D.C., EPA/600/R-99/069 (NTIS PB2000-102483), 1999.
Description:
Phytoremediation is the use of plants to cleanse soil and water contaminated with organic or inorganic pollutants. This promising new field of research can be used for in situ clean up of large volumes and expansive areas of contaminated soils or waters, including ground water. Three laboratory-scale experiments were conducted to: 1)evaluate the ability of selected terrestrial, wetland, and aquatic plants to remove perchlorate from an aqueous solution; 2)compare the performance of different age classes of one plant species; 3)evaluate the role of nutrients on perchlorate removal; 4)determine the fate of perchlorate removed from solution (e.g., plant tissue distribution; accumulation vs. breakdown); 5)document external plant responses to perchlorate; and 6)predict field-scale performance of the plant species evaluated. Perchlorate concentrations of 0.2, 2.0, and 20 ppm were tested in aqueous and sand treatments for ten-day periods in each experiment.