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Phytoremediation

Posted by michael on from the nausicaa-of-the-valley-of-the-wind dept.

Mr.Intel writes "Wired has an article up about an 18 year old biology whiz who has done some very interesting research on phytoremediation (plants used to clean contaminated soil). This type of soil remediation is very eco-friendly compared to traditional methods but requires about 10 to 20 years to be effective. Marc Burell (the kid who did the experiments) used wheat to remove lead from soil in Mississippi."

1 of 15 comments (clear)

  1. Works for gold as well... by cp99 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    This sort of stuff is pretty interesting. At my old university, there was a Prof. who was looking at taking up gold from the soil. You just need to add a simple chemical to the soil, then grow your plants (making sure that you get the species right), and get ready to harvest and extract the gold. While it isn't as cheap as some gold extration methods, it can be used in areas where the gold concentration is too low for other means of extration. Plus you don't have to go pouring tonnes of cyanide into the soil.

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