Evaluating capability of two halophyte plants for phytoextraction of cadmium from contaminated soils

Abstract

Selecting an appropriate plant is a key factor for the phytoextraction of heavy metals from contaminated soils. The possibility of using two halophytes for the remediation of cadmium (Cd) from contaminated soils was investigated. Consequently, an experiment with Chenopodium album L. and Chenopodium botrys L. including Cd treatments of 0, 5,10, 20, 40, 60, 80 and 100 ppm was conducted. Designated analyses including fresh weight, dry weight, and Cd concentrations in shoots and roots were performed. Results indicated that for both plants, a logarithmic model performed best to demonstrate the relationship between total soil Cd with shoot Cd and dry matter. Although both halophytes had considerable capability to remediate Cd from soils, C. botrys demonstrated greater potential to accumulate Cd in shoots. The range of bioconcentration factor (BCF) in C. botrys was obtained to be 0.8 to 8.8 and in C. album was 0.4 to 1.73. For C album, BCF in most treatments was lower than 1.0, but for C. botrys, it was mostly larger than 1.0. Although both plants can be used as hyperaccumulators to remediate Cd-polluted soils, the clean-up time of C. album under higher Cd concentrations was shorter than C. botrys L.

KEYWORDS:

• Clean-up time
• heavy metal
• salt tolerant plants
• soil decontamination
• translocation factor

Acknowledgements

Conceptualization and design: Mahboubeh Mazhari, Safoora Asadi Kapourchal, Mehdi Homaee. Analysis and interpretation of the data: Mahboubeh Mazhari, Safoora Asadi Kapourchal, Mehdi Homaee. Drafting of the paper: Mahboubeh Mazhari, Safoora Asadi Kapourchal. Funding acquisition: Mehdi Homaee. Investigation: Mahboubeh Mazhari, Safoora Asadi Kapourchal, Mehdi Homaee. Methodology: Mahboubeh Mazhari, Safoora Asadi Kapourchal, Mehdi Homaee. Supervision: Mahboubeh Mazhari, Mehdi Homaee. Writing, review and editing: Mahboubeh Mazhari, Safoora Asadi Kapourchal, Mehdi Homaee.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Data availability statement

The data are openly available at https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.23020052.v5.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Agrohydrology Research Group , Tarbiat Modares University, grant number IG-39713.