Heavy metal pollution of soils has increased significantly in the last years owing to anthropic action. Several techniques can be used to revert or to minimize soil contamination, although many of these techniques are harmful to the soil. An alternative is to use a new technique, called phytoremediation, based on the ability of plants to take up elements from soils with excessive high levels of metals or of other potentially toxic elements and thus contribute to soil decontamination. The inoculation […]

Phytoremediation strategies utilize plants to decontaminate or immobilize soil pollutants. Among soil pollutants, metalloid As is considered a primary concern as a toxic element to organisms. Arsenic concentrations in the soil result from anthropogenic activities such as: the use of pesticides (herbicides and fungicides); some fertilizers; Au, Pb, Cu and Ni mining; Fe and steel production; coal combustion; and as a bi-product during natural gas extraction. This study evaluated the potential of pigeon pea (Cajanus cajan), wand riverhemp (Sesbania virgata), […]

As a result of anthropogenic activities such as mining, metal industry and agricultural fertilizer application, metal pollution has become one of the most serious environmental problems of today. Phytoremediation denotes the use of plants and micro-biota, together or without soil amendments, to extract, sequester, and/or detoxify pollutants, has been reported to be an effective, non-destructive, inexpensive and socially accepted technique to remediate polluted soils. The objective of this work was to evaluate the efficiency of organic amendments in the reduction […]

The effects of lime rates on the growth of Eucalyptus camaldulensis in soil mixtures with increasing proportions of Zn and Cd contamination were evaluated. The experiment was carried out under greenhouse conditions and the metal contamination levels were obtained by mixing 0, 25, 50, and 100% of a contaminated soil with a non-contaminated one used as diluter. Lime rates were 0, 10, 20, 40, and 80 t ha-1 and the experiment was conducted in pots containing 1.5 kg of soil with treatments arranged […]