Pytoremediation free essay sample

This is where our friendly plant friends come in, phototypesetting uses natural or genetically modified plants; often together with their associated archbishopric microorganism isms which stimulates plant growth and contaminates soil and water in conjunction with the plants. The plants extract heavy metals, natural aromatic and hydrocarbon compounds and also man-made chemicals such as pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, and antibiotics form the soil (Easier 2010). The Best part is this process uses minimal energy to run, all the plants need to use as energy is water, light and plenty of CO.The main mechanism behind phototypesetting is that they sequester heavy metals into their cell walls , they chocolate (breaking a compound containing a lagans, typically organic bonds of a central metal tom at two or more points, transforms an active poisonous form into an inactive form of the chemical) the toxic metals and transform them into an inactive form. The plants can then store this inactive form in their many vacuoles, these vacuoles are isolated from the important metabolic processes of the plant. We will write a custom essay sample on Pytoremediation or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Another way that plants can decontaminate soil is that they can take up and metabolize harmful organic compounds, including abundant, environmental, aromatic pollutants such as polycarbonate phenyl, halogenated hydrocarbons and then they metabolize these pollutants by grading them to a non-toxic substance. This converted form can even be used up by the plant and their associated microbial units as a natural source of carbon, phosphorus and nitrogen. And in some rare cases some plants can convert the harmful pollutants in to a nutritional source. The magical metabolic process that allows for the conversion of pollutants into nontoxic substances is firstly oxidation/reduction reactions and the hydrolysis of some specific bonds. Secondly some plants conjugation/deregistration with small molecular moieties such as sugars and peptides done by their defensive enzymes. Synthesis of the enzymes that catalyst these reactions is often induced by the toxic substances they act on, thus is a defensive mechanism of the plant that is utilized for our clean up purposes.There are 5 main type of phototypesetting : petrifaction: which is the use of pollutant- accumulating plants to remove metals or organics from soil by concentrating them in the harvested parts, photoengraving which is the use of plants and associated microorganisms to destroy organic pollutants, rationalization which is the use of plant roots to absorb and adsorb pollutants, mainly teals, from water and aqueous waste streams, phytoplanktons which is the use of plants to reduc e the availability of pollutants in the environment and finally the use of plants to remove pollutants from air. Salt et al. 1998) The benefits to phototypesetting are endless, and at the cost of the process its almost seems like magic. The idea behind this technology is not very recent, plants have always been known to have properties that allow them to convert toxic substance into safe forms but the true potential of this natural phenomenon did not get a serious look into until the early sasss when Dry. Lily Raisin , a Russian born US educated scientist a botanist opened the book once again.He was triggered about the thought when in 1989 he moved to the US and he came across a company called Environing that uses microorganisms to clean up contaminated soils, he then thought why not make up a technology that uses plants to do the same. From his previous research he knew that this technology had potential, so then the mainstream thought of phototypesetting came to life. In 1 995 he wrote a scientific journal with other botanists such as David. E Salt and Michael Playback, named Phototypesetting: A novel strategy for the removal of toxic metals from the environment using plants. This Was written in 1995 and really opened to the public the potential use of this technology on a larger scale. It addressed the dire need to find an alternative method towards soil clean up, because conventional methods are just so expensive. Losing petrifaction to clean up one acre of sandy loan soil to a depth of CACM will cost $60,000-$1 00,000 compared to at least $400,000 for excavation and storage alone using traditional soil removal methods ( Raisin I . 995) .