Phytoremediation of arsenic contaminated soil by Pteris vittata
2007
Kondo, T.(Fujita Corp., Tokyo (Japan)) | Kitajima, N.
The Japanese Soil Contamination Countermeasures Law came in to force in Feb. 2003, and has resulted in an increase in the number of soil contamination surveys being undertaken. This has in turn led to an increase in the number of sites known to have contamination levels in excess of the environmental quality standard (EQS). As a result there is a greater need for a wider variety of techniques to deal with the diverse range of sites identified. Phytoremediation is a strong candidate for certain types of contamination. Phytoremediation, which is defined as the technology using plants to reduce or remove pollution from the environment, has the advantages of low cost and low environmental impact. According to the survey results published in November 2006 by the Ministry of Environment, arsenic and its compounds are identified as the second most common heavy metal that exceeded the EQS. In Japan, phytoremediation of arsenic by using the hyperaccumulator fern (Pteris vittata) has being applied to a number of contaminated sites. However, the process is relatively slow (often taking in excess of one year) and it is not so effective against very high levels of contamination. Thus it is very important to carry out a treatability test at the project planning stage in order to estimate the suitability of the technique for a particular site. In this article, we review about our approaches to establish the arsenic phytoremediation and the outlook of this technology.
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