Phytoremediation projects

A recent suggestion has been to use plants to stimulate the microbial degradation of the hydrocarbon (hydrocarbon phytoremediation). This has yet to receive clear experimental verification, but the plants are proposed to help deUver air to the soil microbes, and to stimulate microbial growth in the rhizosphere by the release of nutrients from the roots. The esthetic appeal of an active phytoremediation project can be very great. 

A total of 120 test pots were used to examine the effects of three soil additive mixtures to root and shoot growth of the Festuca cultivars. Due to the extremely high metal content of the Warynski soils, additive mixtures were necessary to provide a nutrient substrate for plant development. The use of additives in phytoremediation projects may therefore be more properly termed phytochemostabilization. 

Most of the 100 pump-and-treat projects were full scale (84 projects) and were ongoing (78 projects) at the time that its profile was published. In addition, while most (54%) of the projects used pump-and-treat alone, almost half supplemented pump-and-treat with air sparging, SVE, or other technologies, such as phytoremediation, bioremediation, or ISCO. 

From the 323 MTBE treatment profiles, eight projects were identified where MTBE was treated using phytoremediation. These projects used various approaches, including hybrid poplar trees, Monterey pine, oak, eucalyptus, and engineered wetlands. 

The project was dropped. Even if phytoremediation tried on this site and if it were considered successful in remediating the soils, the fundamental question of what to do with the contaminated plants and trees would still pose a huge challenge. 

Phytoremediation was estimated to cost approximately 3500/kg of waste treated at a site contaminated with benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylene (BTEX) chlorinated solvents and other volatile organic compounds. Total savings associated with using phytoremediation at the site instead of conventional pump-and-treat strategies were estimated to be 13 million over the course of the project (D186678, p. 29). 

---