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Potential of Syzygium cumini for Biocontrol and Phytoremediation
Published in K. N. Nair, The Genus Syzygium, 2017
S. K. Tewari, R. C. Nainwal, Devendra Singh
Plants have various adaptive mechanisms to strive and survive in stressful environments, such as high salinity, extreme heat, drought, and freezing temperatures. Modern environmental biotechnology researches are now focusing on such adaptive traits in plants and modifying these traits for developing ecofriendly and sustainable technologies to combat environmental pollution, ecosystem degradation, climate change, and other problems. Phytoremediators are plants that are used for cleaning up soil in contaminated areas. They not only function as salt tolerant, but also can reduce some of the negative effects of soil salinity and sodicity by working as ion accumulators or excretors, and tend to promote soil permeability. Combined with accurate water management strategies, they can also remove heavy metals, arsenic, lead, aluminum (Al), and many other toxic elements from the soil. A study revealed that high population density of monoculture plantations may increase the C and N contents, up to six times in surface soil (0.15 m) in eight-year-old plantations (Garg 1998; Garg and Jain 1992). The soil properties are largely influenced by the dynamics of litter and fine roots in forest ecosystems, and both fluxes are equally important. Litter performs a major role in soil fertility, and fine roots contribute substantially in improving soil structure, pH, resource acquisition, and water permeability (Singh 1996). Phytoremediation, often referred to as bioremediation, botanical bioremediation, or green remediation, is the use of plants to make contaminants nontoxic. Phytoremediation includes rhizofiltration (absorption, concentration, and precipitation of heavy metals by plant roots), phytoextraction (extraction and accumulation of contaminants in harvestable plant tissue such as roots and shoots), and phytostabilization (absorption and precipitation of contaminants by plants) (Miller 1996). Phytoremediation is characterized by the use of vegetative species for in situ treatment of land areas polluted by a variety of hazardous substances (Sykes et al. 1999). The ideal type of phytoremediator is a species that creates a large biomass, grows quickly, has an extensive root system, and must be easily cultivated and harvested (Clemens et al. 2002).
Adsorption of cadmium from aqueous solutions by novel Fe3O4- newly isolated Actinomucor sp. bio-nanoadsorbent: functional group study
Published in Artificial Cells, Nanomedicine, and Biotechnology, 2018
Ramin Masoudi, Hamid Moghimi, Ehsan Azin, Ramezan Ali Taheri
The fungal strain Actinomucor sp. was provided from Environmental Biotechnology Lab (EBL), University of Tehran. All materials used in this study were purchased from Merck Co. (Germany). Deionized water and Cd(NO3)2.4H2O were used for the preparation of metal solutions. All the tests were performed in concentration of 200 mg/L Cd2+ and pH 7. Actinomucor sp. biomass was prepared in potato dextrose broth (PDB) culture medium containing potato infusion (4 g/L) and dextrose (20 g/L), where initial pH was adjusted to 5.5. Iron oxide magnetic nanoparticles (Fe3O4) with purity of 98% and 20–30 nm particle size was purchased from US NANO company (US Research Nanomaterials, Inc. USA).