In-situ co-remediation of PAHs contaminated agricultural soil using blood meal and celery: An agricultural greenhouse field study

ABSTRACT

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) contaminated agricultural soil is widespread globally. To develop a cost-effective remediation technique to effectively degrade PAH contaminated agricultural soil without disturbing crop production, an in-situ co-remediation of PAH contaminated agricultural soil using blood meal and celery was assessed in an agricultural greenhouse. Results showed PAH dissipation rates increased significantly in agricultural soil when co-remediated by blood meal and celery. Planting celery and addition of 5 g•kg⁻¹ blood meal removed 53.13% of PAHs within three months. Residual PAH concentrations in plant tissue were much lower than China Standard food limits. Results indicated the ability of celery to enhance bioavailability of PAHs, and create favorable conditions for microbial, rather than direct plant uptake, played a vital role in degradation of PAHs. Addition of blood meal significantly enhanced soil enzyme activity and PAH degradation, and increased PAH remediation rate with optimal addition of blood meal (5 g•kg⁻¹). Celery enhanced bioavailability of PAHs. Blood meal increased soil enzyme activity and increased PAH degrading bacterial activity, which acted as the main remediation pathway to co-remediate PAHs, where celery was safe to eat. Therefore, a novel in-situ agricultural soil PAH remedial method, which did not disturb normal agricultural production during remediation is presented in this study.

KEYWORDS:

• Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs)
• contaminated agricultural soil
• Co-remediation
• blood meal
• celery
• In-situ remediation

Acknowledgments

The authors thank the staff of Shenyang University Laboratory of Eco-Remediation and Resource Reuse for their support during field sampling, logistics, and laboratory analysis. H. Wang thanks for the financially supported by China Scholarship Council.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Credit author statement

Hao Wu and Hui Wang: designed the experiments, Writing – Original draft preparation; Tony R. Walker: Writing – Reviewing and Editing, Analyzed the data; Xiaoxu Wang: Performed the experiments; Yinggang Wang: Writing – Original draft preparation; Lina Sun: designed the experiments.

Supplemental data

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/15320383.2022.2145268.

Additional information

Funding

The authors have no funding to report.