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Land Contamination and Remediation

Phytoextraction with Indian mustard and alpine pennycress

  • 3 things to know
  • A2 1

Overview

Alpine pennycress for zinc and cadmium, Indian mustard for lead with EDTA, gold and uranium, the advantages and limits of each, zinc uptake and harvest calculations, a laboratory demonstration and commercial evaluation.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

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Evaluation

Evaluate phytoextraction for the commercial decontamination of metal-polluted soil.

Key term

What is alpine pennycress, and which metals does it accumulate?

Evaluation

What are the advantages of alpine pennycress for decontaminating soil?

Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

  1. 1

    What is alpine pennycress, and which metals does it accumulate?

    Model answer

    Alpine pennycress, Thlaspi caerulescens, is a small hyperaccumulating plant, also called alpine pennygrass. The plant accumulates zinc and cadmium to very high concentrations in its leaves.

  2. 2

    What are the advantages of alpine pennycress for decontaminating soil?

    Model answer

    Alpine pennycress can hold zinc at over 1% of its leaf dry mass without being poisoned. Alpine pennycress also stores cadmium at levels that would kill most plants.

  3. 3

    What are the limitations of alpine pennycress for commercial decontamination?

    Model answer

    Alpine pennycress is small and slow-growing, so each harvest removes little metal in total. The low rosette of leaves is also hard to harvest by machine.

  4. 4

    Which metals can Indian mustard remove from soil?

    Model answer

    Indian mustard, Brassica juncea, can take up cadmium, zinc, copper and lead. The plant can also accumulate gold and uranium when the soil is treated to mobilise them.

  5. 5

    What are the advantages of Indian mustard for commercial decontamination?

    Model answer

    Indian mustard grows fast and produces a large biomass. The crop is easily sown and harvested with ordinary farm machinery, and several crops can be grown in a year.

  6. 6

    What are the limitations of Indian mustard for decontaminating soil?

    Model answer

    Indian mustard stores much lower metal concentrations than a true hyperaccumulator. The plant often needs chelating chemicals to take up lead, gold or uranium.

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