9
Phytotechnologies for Site Remediation
includes converting the obtained biomass into useful products (Evangelou
et al., 2015; Robinson et al., 2009); in other words, “phytomanagement is a combination of phytoremediation and sustainable site management with economic
return” (Conesa et al., 2012; Pandey & Bajpai, 2019).
The goal of this section is to provide an overview of various plant-based
techniques for remediation of contaminated soils and to introduce research
and applications of plant cultivation in contaminated areas to obtain biomass,
with emphasis on Miscanthus as the phytoagent (Pidlisnyuk et al., 2014).
2.2 Phytotechnologies
The two most commonly used phytotechnologies for inorganic contaminants are phytoextraction and phytostabilization. In the phytoextraction
process the plant’s ability to accumulate trace elements is important. Based
on the relative uptake and bioaccumulation potential, plants can be grouped
into three categories: excluders, indicators, and accumulators (Adriano, 2001;
Hunt et al., 2014) (see Figure 2.1).
The ability of plants to accumulate trace elements from the soil can be
estimated by the enrichment coefficient (EC) or the bioconcentration factor,
which are expressed as the ratio of defined trace element concentrations
in the plant material (mg kg −1 of dry matter) and in the soil (mg kg −1 of
dry soil). In addition, translocation factor (TLF) value reflects the levels of
plants’ phytoextraction potential accounting as a ratio of the contaminants’
concentrations in the aboveground biomass to their concentration in roots
FIGURE 2.1
Three groups of plant categories based on their uptake behavior of trace elements: excluders,
indicators, and accumulators. (Modified from Hunt et al., 2014.)