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Rol de las plantas
Screening of five emergent wetland plant species for phytoremediation of
tebuconazole (TBU) from contaminated water
T. Lv
1
, Y. Zhang
1,2
, P. N. Carvalho
1
, C. A. Arias
1
, H. Brix
1
1
Department of Bioscience, Aarhus University, Ole Worms Allé 1, Building 1135, 8000 Aarhus
C, Denmark.
2
College of Life Science, South China Normal University, Guangzhou 510631, PR China.
Introduction
The pollution of the aquatic environment by pesticides due to discharge of precipitation and
surface runoff has increased the concerns over public health due to their high toxicity and
bio-recalcitrant characteristics
. Tebuconazole (TBU) is one of the most common
triazole pesticide used in various crops such as barley, wheat and peanuts to destroy the
membrane of most fungi
. Current methods for the treatment of TBU containing
wastewaters such as the heterogeneous photocatalytic oxidation (HPO) process
, hoto-
Fenton
and photocatalytic degradation
have proved to be efficient in removing of
these compounds. However, these advanced oxidation processes also present high operating
and energy costs. So, the development of low energy cost and environmentally friendly
purification methods have gotten more and more attention.
Constructed wetland systems have been found to be able to remove various pollutants and
nutrients from wastewater as a cost-effective, extensive, and efficient alternative biological
technology [6, 7]. Additionally, it has been documented that wetland plants not only play
an important role in the removal of pollutants, such as nitrogen, COD and phosphors, but
also have a positive effect on the removal of some organic contaminants [8, 9]. Though
there is generally little proof that the plants themselves are degrading the organic micro-
contaminants, planted systems show higher removal rates than non-planted ones [9]. The
underlying mechanisms associated with the micro-pollutants treatment are not adequately
understood. Hence, it is the aim of the present research to increase the understanding of the
uptake and transformation processes of pesticides by different kinds of wetland plants.
Methodology
Five emergent macrophyte species,
Typha latifolia, Phragmites australis, Iris pseudacorus,
Berula erecta
and
Juncus effusus
, based laboratory-scale aquatic ecosystems were set up to
treat a nutrient solution spiked with TBU at a 10 mg/L level . In addition, three replicates
vessels of each plant without TBU served as control samples, and 5 additional vessels
without plants served as chemical control samples. The nutrient solution was prepared from
Mili-Q water and reagent grade salts having the following composition (mg L
-1
): Ca 25.0;
Mg 6.8; Na 16.0; K 6.0; DIC 10.2; SO4 26.9; Cl 44.2 [10]. Daily the commercial product
Tropica Master Grow (Tropica Aquacare, Aarhus, Denmark) was added to provide the
