Phytoremediation Efficiency of Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench in Removing Cadmium, Lead and Arsenic

SA Shafiei Darabi, A Almodares* and M Ebrahimi

Heavy metals are a significant problem in municipal wastewater, in soil accumulation and are costly to remove in order to facilitate water use in irrigation. Wastewater, with three heavy metal cations and an anion, was employed in irrigation during the Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench growth period. Results show that the absorption coefficient or bioaccumulation ability of Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench is relegated to certain heavy metals and their concentrations, but not at all to plant tissues in dry ash weight (DAW) scale. Heavy metals absorption was determined in the following order: cadmium = lead > arsenic, and while tissue accumulation based on DAW was equal for cadmium and lead, based on dry weight (DW) all three ions differed. The soil’s ability to accumulate heavy metal ranked as follows: cadmium > lead> arsenic by wastewater quality in this experimvent. These results change many previous ideas about decreasing the transportation of heavy metals from root to shoot or other organs in plants. With low cadmium and lead concentration in irrigation, sorghum is a good plant for remediation; however, in high concentration this plant benefits from arsenic remediation. Soil is a critical parameter for wastewater phytoremediation. This topic merits further research.

Keywords: Sorghum; Cadmium; Lead; Arsenic; Wastewater; Absorption coefficient

Published on: Jan 27, 2016 Pages: 1-6

Full Text PDF Full Text HTML DOI: 10.17352/ojeb.000001
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