REMOVAL OF ZINC BY NATIVE ACCUMULATOR PLANTS

Environmental Engineering

NATIONAL CONFERENCE ON TECHNOLOGICAL ADVANCEMENTS IN ENGINEERING

Phytoremediation is the natural process in which the plants are used to bio-accumulate, degrade contaminants in soils, water, (or) air. This study involves the phytoremediation of zinc metal in the soil using native hyper accumulator plants such as Amaranthus dubius and Calendula officinalis. In this experiment both plants were studied for their ability to uptake zinc from contaminated soil. Zinc chloride was used for the preparation of synthetic contaminated soil and various concentrations of zinc solutions were introduced in the experimental pots (25ppm, 50ppm, 75ppm and 100ppm) for a 40days of cultivation period. In the study, the various physiochemical properties of soil were analyzed and the accumulation ability of Zn ions in Amaranthus dubius and Calendula officinalis were detected on 20th and 40th days of experiment by using Atomic Absorption Spectrophotometer (AAS) after the acid digestion method. From the observations made, it is clearly seen that, as the concentration of the element increases in the soil, the efficiency or the ability of the plant to uptake the element decreases. This condition is same for both the plants. 25ppm is assessed as the optimum concentration here in these cases. Comparing the 20th and 40th day of both the specimen plants, there is a peculiarity that, both the plants exhibit higher efficiency on the 40th day than that of the 20th day. Hence it is considered as the optimum cultivation period. Individually, Calendula officinalis shows higher removal efficiency than that Amaranthus dubius on the 20th and 40th day observations.

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