The EDTA Amendment in Phytoextraction of ¹³⁴Cs From Soil by Indian Mustard (Brassica juncea)

Abstract

Soil contamination with radiocaesium is a significant problem at any countries when a nuclear accident occurred. Recently, phytoextraction technique is developed to remediate the contaminated environment. However, the application is limited by the availability of the contaminant for root uptake. Therefore, a green house trial experiment of soil amendment with ethylene diamine tetraacetic acid (EDTA) has been conducted to examine ¹³⁴Cs availability for root uptake. Two groups of Indian mustard (Brassica juncea) were cultivated in ¹³⁴Cs contaminated soil. The soil in the first group was treated with EDTA amendment, while the other was not. Plant growth was observed gravimetrically and the ¹³⁴Cs concentration in soil as well as plants were determined using gamma spectrometry. The plant uptake capacity was determined as transfer factor (F_v), and the F_v values of 0.22 ± 0.0786 and 0.12 ± 0.039 were obtained for the soil treated with and without EDTA amendment, respectively. The phytoextraction efficiency of the plant cultivated in ¹³⁴Cs contaminated soil both with and without EDTA amendment was low. The EDTA amendment to the soil seems to enhance the ¹³⁴Cs availability for root uptake of Indian mustard and can still be considered to assist the field phytoremediation of contaminated soil.

Keywords::

• ¹³⁴Cs
• EDTA
• phytroextraction
• phytoremediation
• radiocaesium
• soil contamination

Acknowledgment

The authors thank to Mr. M. Haidir, the student of environmental engineering of Bandung Institute of Technology, to Ms Neneng Nur Aisyah and Mr. Widanda of Nuclear Technology Center for Materials and Radiometry, for their kind helps during the experiment.