FORMAT OF THE PAPER

1. TITLE: PHYTOREMEDIATION: PROCESS, APPLICATION AND ADVANCES

IN AGRICULTURE
2. INTRODUCTION
Land, surface waters, and ground water worldwide, are increasingly affected
by contaminations from industrial, research experiments, military, and
agricultural activities either due to ignorance, lack of vision, carelessness, or
high cost of waste disposal and treatment. The rapid build-up of toxic
pollutants (metals, radionuclide, and organic contaminants in soil, surface
water, and ground water) not only affects natural resources, but also causes
major strains on ecosystems. Interest in phytoremediation as a method to
solve environmental contamination has been growing rapidly in recent years.

Phytoremediation, which is derived from the words “phyto” (plant) and

“remediation” (recovery) and has become a term in 1991, can be also defined
as “bioremediation,” “botanical remediation” and “green remediation.”
Phytoremediation is a term which is related to ecological remediation
technologies that use plants as the main source. With this technology, organic
and inorganic substances are removed from the contaminated area by using
plants. The effects of this method can be observed in low polluted areas in a
short time. The negative aspect is that in heavy contaminated areas the plants
cannot be useful in a period of short time . The plants which are identified as
metal hyper-accumulators and wild, are able to remove contaminant elements
10–500 times higher compared to the ones that are cultivated .

Phytoremediation method is ecological, does not need special equipment

during application and provides a re-usable land. The root depths and climatic
conditions play an important role in the efficiency of the system. First of all,
the soil must be appropriate to the needs of the plant for the removal of the
contaminants from the soil by the plant. The pH of the soil is one of the most
important parameters. The pH levels of the area must be between 5.8 and 6.5
for the nutrient elements to be taken .
 Certain plants are able to remove or break down harmful chemicals from the
ground when their roots take in water and nutrients from the contaminated
soil, sediment, or groundwater. Plants can help clean up contaminants as
deep as their roots can reach using natural processes to:
• Store the contaminants in the roots, stems, or leaves.
• Convert them to less harmful chemicals within the plant or, more commonly,
the root zone.
• Convert them to vapors, which are released into the air.
• Sorb (stick) contaminants onto their roots where very small organisms
called “microbes” (such
Phytoremediation basically refers to the use of plants and associated soil
microbes to reduce the concentrations or toxic effects of contaminants in the
environment. Phytoremediation is widely accepted as a cost-effective
environmental restoration technology. Phytoremediation is an alternative to
engineering procedures that are usually more destructive to the soil.
Phytoremediation of contaminated sites should ideally not exceed one decade
to reach acceptable levels of contaminants in the environment.
Phytoremediation is, however, limited to the root-zone of plants. Also, this
technology has limited application where the concentrations of contaminants
are toxic to plants. Phytoremediation technologies are available for various
environments and types of contaminants
With the development of industrialization and urbanization, the abundance of
heavy metals in the environment has increased enormously during the past
decades, which raised significant concerns throughout the world (Suman et
al., 2018; Ashraf et al., 2019). Heavy metals are a group of metallic chemical
elements that have relatively high densities, atomic weights, and atomic
numbers. The common heavy metals/metalloids include cadmium (Cd),
mercury (Hg), lead (Pb), arsenic (As), zinc (Zn), copper (Cu), nickel (Ni), and
chromium (Cr).
3. MAIN BODY (HEADINGS WITH SUBTOPIC: SYNTHESIS FROM
RESEARCH REVIEWS / JOURNALS ARTICLES)
Phytoremediation is a plant-based approach, which involves the use of plants
to extract and remove elemental pollutants or lower their bioavailability in soil
(Berti and Cunningham, 2000). Plants have the abilities to absorb ionic
 compounds in the soil even at low concentrations through their root system.
Plants extend their root system into the soil matrix and establish rhizosphere
ecosystem to accumulate heavy metals and modulate their bioavailability,
thereby reclaiming the polluted soil and stabilizing soil fertility (Ali et al.,
2013; Jacob et al., 2018; DalCorso et al., 2019). There are advantages of
using phytoremediation, which include: (i) economically feasible—
phytoremediation is an autotrophic system powered by solar energy,
therefore, simple to manage, and the cost of installation and maintenance is
low, (ii) environment and eco-friendly—it can reduce exposure of the
pollutants to the environment and ecosystem, (iii) applicability—it can be
applied over a large-scale field and can easily be disposed, (iv) it prevents
erosion and metal leaching through stabilizing heavy metals, reducing the risk
of spreading of contaminants, (v) it can also improve soil fertility by releasing
various organic matters to the soil (Aken et al., 2009; Wuana and Okieimen,
2011; Jacob et al., 2018). During the past decades, numerous studies have
been conducted to understand the molecular mechanisms underlying heavy
metal tolerance and to develop techniques to improve phytoremediation
efficiency. In the current review, the mechanisms of how heavy metals are
taken up and translocated in plants are described, and the detoxification
strategies (avoidance and tolerance) adopted by plants in response to heavy
metal have been discussed. The main objective is to overview the recent
advances in developing phytoremediation techniques, including the strategies
to improve heavy metal bioavailability, tolerance, and accumulation. This
review also highlights the application of genetic engineering to improve plant
performance during phytoremediation.

Metal Recovery

Much of the literature finds out that Phytoremediation deals an opportunity to

upsurge the financial possibility of phytoremediation programs, and to diminish
disposal risks through the utilization of metal enriched plant biomass in energy and
metal recovery with the burnt process. Some important metals, such as Ni, Se, Zn,
and Fe can be recovered from the phytoremediation process of phytomining and
biofortification. The recovery of metals from metal contaminated sites, using high
biomass producing plants is known as phytomining. Biofortification is the concept of
increasing the nutritional quality of edible grains and vegetables. This can be done
through several processes, such as agronomic practices, conventional plant
breeding, and modern biotechnology. Combining biofortification with
phytoremediation is a new idea to tackle malnutrition and environmental remediation
(Pandey, 2013a; Pandey et al., 2016). A number of different plants have been
reported and documented for phytoremediation as Ni and Zn hyperaccumulators
(more than 300), as those are the most accumulated metals by different
hyperaccumulator species. For example, Alyssum lesbiacum is an Ni
hyperaccumulator (Cluis, 2004), and Arabidopsis halleri is a Zn hyperaccumulator
(McNair et al., 2000). Plant selection and target metal decide the outcome and
financial risks of phytoremediation programs. Jiang et al. (2015) proposed that high
biomass producing plants and high value-added metals produce significantly more
income (Jiang et al., 2015).

Phytoremediation, the use of green plants to treat and control wastes in water,
soil, and air, is an important part of the new field of ecological engineering. In
situ and ex situ applications are governed by site soil and water characteristics,
nutrient sustainability, meteorology, hydrology, feasible ecosystems, and
contaminant characteristics. Phytotoxicity and mass transport limitations
or bioavailability tend to be critical in applications. Most applications are inexpensive
due to the reliance on sunlight and recycling of nutrients in situ but treatments over
large land areas and longer times for treatment are usually limited to root zones and
shallow water. Applications of wetlands, grasslands, crops, and tree plantations have
been successful for a variety of wastes, usually present in low concentrations that
are not acutely phytotoxic. Organic and inorganic wastes include metals
and metalloids, some xenobiotic contaminants, and salts leachate, sewage, sludge,
and other conventional wastes. Some redundant or back-up treatment may be
necessary depending on the acuteness of toxicity to offset the variability of biological
systems. However, very few phytoremediation techniques have been optimized for
sustainability using the fundamental principles of ecological engineering.
Applications of monocultures of hybrids and sometimes alien species, and simple
ecosystems of plants and microorganisms are feasible but difficult to apply in some
cases. Self-engineering and self-design need to be explored and used to apply
sustainable ecosystems to manage wastes. The key to applying sustainable
ecosystems is the knowledge of the genetic and proteomic diversity necessary to
select plants and other organisms with optimal activities to transform or accumulate
pollutants. Most of the proteomes of plants (approximately 10 000 proteins for all
species) have not been adequately explored to optimize and understand the range of
possible phytoremediation applications. Furthermore, the metabolism or degradation
of the approximately 200 000 secondary plant metabolites needs to be understood. If
the structure and activity of a xenobiotic chemical are similar to that of a secondary
metabolite, there is a good chance that a sustainable phytoremediation application is
possible. Because some xenobiotic compounds may not be analogous to any
secondary metabolite, some genetic engineering may be necessary to sustainably
manage these unusual wastes. Plants seem to be the optimal organism in which to
transplant (1) microbial genes to achieve more mineralization of organic
contaminants and (2) mammalian genes that may have greater activity.

Environmental Phytoremediation: Plants and

Microorganisms at Work
(https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/2489/environmental-phytoremediation-
plants-and-microorganisms-at-work)- Antonella Furini , Anna
Manara and Giovanni DalCorso
Editorial
Published on 07 July 2015
Front. Plant Sci. doi: 10.3389/fpls.2015.00520

Phytoremediation is the use of plants to reclaim polluted environment (soils and

waters) through mechanisms of extraction, sequestration and detoxification of both
organic and inorganic compounds that may be toxic for living organisms.
Phytoremediation is a generic term that includes a range of applications, which are
grouped as phytovolatilization, phytostimulation, phytostabilization, phyto- and rhizo-
degradation, phytoextraction and rhizofiltration. These processes take advantage of
the interactions between plants and microorganisms. Rhizospheric bacteria and
fungi engage a variety of metabolic activities that influence pollutant chemistry,
bioavailability and mobility and promote plant fitness and growth. Physiological
changes in plants are also triggered by endophytic microorganisms which influence
the plant water and metal uptake and, by conducting stepwise transformation of
organic contaminants improve the phytoremediation efficiency. On the other hand,
plant photosynthesis provides organic compounds that can be exploited as carbon
sources for microbial population. In this view, microbial-assisted phytoremediation is
emerging as a novel approach, which may find application in remediation of both
organic and metallic contaminants. Moreover, it is worth noting that transgenic plants
and/or microorganisms may find application in novel phytoremediation approaches,
whose utilization may result in enhanced plant growth, detoxification properties for
organic pollutants or accumulation capacity for inorganic contaminants. Genetic
information that meliorate phytoremediation technology may derive from both
microbial and plant genomes. Researchers have genetically engineered the bacteria
that find application in phytoremediation, both enhancing their
detoxification/accumulation ability and their synergistic capacity towards plants.
Finally, microbial-assisted phytoremediation has been for long time verified under
laboratory conditions, but its application in field, to remediate both organic
compounds and heavy metals, is still under evaluation. Phytoremediation has been
considered as cost-effective and environmentally friendly in respect to traditional
chemical-physical based techniques. Despite this, many are the challenges that face
large-scale in vivo application, first of all the strategy and design, which have to be
specifically tailored to the environmental conditions of each polluted site, such as soil
composition, temperature range, type, concentrations of contaminants and its
bioavailability. Release of volatile pollutant compounds from groundwater and soil to
the atmosphere is a further complication to phytoremediation feasibility. Moreover,
plant and microbial transgenic manipulation usually lack of public acceptance and
trust, which should be overcome by the collaboration of researchers and public
administrators to support regulatory and policy decisions and ensure environmental
strategies and regulation of phytoremediation.
This Research Topic will highlight novel information acquired in the field of microbial-
assisted phytoremediation, considering both the molecular aspects underneath the
plant-microbe relationship, and also novel applications and approaches exploited to
render this technique actually employable in vivo.
We warmly welcome original research articles, method articles, reviews, mini-
reviews or perspective articles.

Phytoremediation: A Green Technology to Remove Environmental

Pollutants Annie Melinda Paz-Alberto1 , Gilbert C. Sigua2* 1 Institute
for Climate Change and Environmental Management, Central Luzon
State University, Science City of Muñoz, Philippines 2 Coastal Plains Soil,
Water & Plant Research Center, Agricultural Research Service, United
States Department of Agriculture, Florence, USA Email: *
gilbert.sigua@ars.usda.gov Received September 8, 2012; revised
December 10, 2012; accepted December 27, 2012
American Journal of Climate Change, 2013, 2, 71-86

Phytoremediation using “green plants” has potential benefits in restoring a balance in stressed
environment. It is an emerging low cost technology, non-intrusive, and aesthetically pleasing using
the remarkable ability of green plants to metabolize various elements and compounds from the
environment in their tissues. Phytoremediation technology is applicable to a broad range of
contaminants, including metals and radionuclides, as well as organic compounds like chlorinated
solvents, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, pesticides, explosives, and surfactants. However,
phytoremediation technology is still in its youthful development stages and full scale application is
still inadequate. As with all new technology, it is important to proceed with caution. The largest
barrier to the advancement of phytoremediation, however, may be public opposition to genetic
modification in general. Because all natural hyperaccumulator species are small in size, genetic
modification can be used to introduce this technology to other species or to increase the biomass of
the natural hyperaccumulators in order to create effective phytoremediators. This public opposition
was the same fears that surround the issue of genetic modification of crops, and includes concerns
regarding decreased biodiversity, the entry of potentially harmful genes into products consumed by
humans, and the slippery slope created by introducing and transferring novel, foreign DNA between
non-related species. Nonetheless, the benefits of using phytoremediation to restore balance to a
stressed environment seem to far outweigh the costs.

4. INSIGHTS
5. REFERENCES
 (Greipsson, 2011)
https://www.nature.com/scitable/knowledge/library/phytoremediation-
17359669/#:~:text=Phytoremediation%20basically%20refers%20to
%20the,cost%2Deffective%20environmental%20restoration
%20technology.
 https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpls.2020.00359/full
 https://www.intechopen.com/chapters/56666
 file:///C:/Users/OOOPPS/Downloads/
Phytoremediation_A_Green_Technology_to_Remove_Envi.pdf