The role of citric acid on the phytoremediation of heavy metal contaminated soil

Y. X. Chen*, Q. Lin, Y. M. Luo, Y. F. He, S. J. Zhen, Y. L. Yu, G. M. Tian, M. H. Wong

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articlepeer-review

303 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Adsorption and hydroponics experiments were conducted to study the role of citric acid on the phytoremediation of heavy metal contaminated soil. The results show that addition of citric acid decreased the adsorption of both lead and cadmium, such an effect was bigger for cadmium than for lead. The decrease in the adsorption of Pb and Cd was mainly due to a decrease of pH in the presence of citric acid. The presence of citric acid could alleviate the toxicity of Pb and Cd to radish, and stimulate their transportation from root to shoot. The studies of heavy metal forms using sequential extraction demonstrated that lead was mainly existed as FHAC (a lower bioavailable form) in the root, while FHCl was the dominant form in the leaf. The addition of citric acid to the soil changed the concentration and relative abundance of all the forms. The detoxifying effect of citric acid to Pb in shoots might result from the transformation of higher toxic forms into lower toxic forms. Cadmium was mainly present as FNaCl, therefore, it had higher toxicity than lead. The addition of citric acid increased the abundance of FH2O + FNaCl, indicating that citric acid treatment could transform cadmium into more transportable forms.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)807-811
Number of pages5
JournalChemosphere
Volume50
Issue number6
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Feb 2003

Scopus Subject Areas

  • Environmental Engineering
  • Environmental Chemistry
  • Chemistry(all)
  • Pollution
  • Health, Toxicology and Mutagenesis

User-Defined Keywords

  • Cd
  • Citric acid
  • Pb
  • Phytoremediation

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