TITLE:
Potential of Vigna unguiculata as a Phytoremediation Plant in the Remediation of Zn from Contaminated Soil
AUTHORS:
Jyotsana Singh, Padmalochan Hembram, Jolly Basak
KEYWORDS:
Heavy-Metal Toxicity; Phytoremediation; Proline; Atomic Absorption; Vigna unguiculata
JOURNAL NAME:
American Journal of Plant Sciences,
Vol.5 No.9,
April
1,
2014
ABSTRACT: Population explosion in the last decades together with global
industrialization has caused heavy-metal contamination of air, water and soil,
resulting in diverse incurable effects on humans and on the stability of the
ecosystem. Non-biodegradable heavy-metals can remain in the ecosystem and the
threat associated with their bioaccumulation in food chains represents one of
the major environmental and health problems of present day society. Several
studies were carried out to understand the ecological effects of the
heavy-metal Zn in soil-plant systems. Plants often have a zinc uptake that
their systems cannot handle, due to the accumulation of zinc in soils. Of the
several Zn toxicity symptoms, fatal are yield reduction, stunted growth,
chlorosis, reduced chlorophyll synthesis and chloroplast degradation. Vigna unguiculata is an herbaceous,
annual plant in the pea family Fabaceae. In the present study, an experiment
was performed to evaluate the Zn phytoextracting ability of V. unguiculata under in vitro condition. We establish that V. unguiculata can uptake a considerable amount of the heavy-metal
zinc and this phytoextraction property can be utilized in long run for the
cleanup of zinc contaminated soil. To the best of our knowledge, this is the
first report of Zn phytoextraction ability of V. unguiculata.