Page 14 - Plant-Based Remediation Processes

Chapter 1
Phytoremediation Protocols: An Overview

Soumya Chatterjee, Anindita Mitra, Sibnarayan Datta, and Vijay Veer

1.1 Phytoremediation: An Introduction

Growth and development of any organism is always influenced by the environment.
It is axiomatic that, plants do have unique characteristics to deal with wide-ranging
of ambience that involve different fluctuating conditions like climate, temperature,
moisture, and soil conditions (Norman 1962). Along with water, nutrients, and
minerals essential for their growth, plants take up a diversity of natural and noxious
compounds through their root system from soil and ground water. To survive with
all such essential and nonessential components, plants use to develop diverse
detoxification mechanisms within their system (Singer 2006). Microorganisms
present in the rhizosphere region of plants have the ability to eliminate several
contaminants from the surroundings by a range of enzymatic processes. Conse-
quence with of their versatility, adaptability, and diversity in the environment, a
number of microorganisms along with plants may be regarded as the excellent
system to remediate most of the environmental contaminants, including organic and
inorganic contaminants ones (Lovley 2003). Keeping in view of these attributes,
plants may be regarded fundamentally as a “natural, solar powered pump and
treat system” (Pilon-Smits 2005) for cleaning of contaminated sites leading to
the concept of phytoremediation, a natural, esthetically pleasing, and low cost
technology.
Phytoremediation (Ancient Greek: phyto-“plant,” and Latin remedium-“restoring
balance”) describes the treatment of diverse environmental pollution problems.
According to the recent definition presented by Landmeyer (2011), phytoremediation
is the “application of plant-controlled interactions with groundwater and organic and

S. Chatterjee (*) • S. Datta • V. Veer
Defence Research Laboratory, DRDO, Post Bag 2, Tezpur 784001, Assam, India
e-mail: drlsoumya@gmail.com
A. Mitra
Department of Zoology, Bankura Christian College, Bankura 722101, West Bengal, India

D.K. Gupta (ed.), Plant-Based Remediation Processes, Soil Biology 35, 1
DOI 10.1007/978-3-642-35564-6_1, # Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2013