Natural and Technical Phytoremediation of Oil-Contaminated Soil
Leonid Panchenko,
Anna Muratova,
Ekaterina Dubrovskaya,
Sergey Golubev,
Olga Turkovskaya
Affiliations
Leonid Panchenko
Institute of Biochemistry and Physiology of Plants and Microorganisms, Saratov Scientific Centre of the Russian Academy of Sciences (IBPPM RAS), 13 Prospekt Entuziastov, 410049 Saratov, Russia
Anna Muratova
Institute of Biochemistry and Physiology of Plants and Microorganisms, Saratov Scientific Centre of the Russian Academy of Sciences (IBPPM RAS), 13 Prospekt Entuziastov, 410049 Saratov, Russia
Ekaterina Dubrovskaya
Institute of Biochemistry and Physiology of Plants and Microorganisms, Saratov Scientific Centre of the Russian Academy of Sciences (IBPPM RAS), 13 Prospekt Entuziastov, 410049 Saratov, Russia
Sergey Golubev
Institute of Biochemistry and Physiology of Plants and Microorganisms, Saratov Scientific Centre of the Russian Academy of Sciences (IBPPM RAS), 13 Prospekt Entuziastov, 410049 Saratov, Russia
Olga Turkovskaya
Institute of Biochemistry and Physiology of Plants and Microorganisms, Saratov Scientific Centre of the Russian Academy of Sciences (IBPPM RAS), 13 Prospekt Entuziastov, 410049 Saratov, Russia
Natural and technical phytoremediation approaches were compared for their efficacy in decontaminating oil-polluted soil. We examined 20 oil-contaminated sites of 800 to 12,000 m2 each, with different contamination types (fresh or aged) and levels (4.2–27.4 g/kg). The study was conducted on a field scale in the industrial and adjacent areas of a petroleum refinery. Technical remediation with alfalfa (Medicago sativa L.), ryegrass (Lolium perenne L.), nitrogen fertilizer, and soil agrotechnical treatment was used to clean up 10 sites contaminated by oil hydrocarbons (average concentration, 13.7 g/kg). In technical phytoremediation, the per-year decontamination of soil was as high as 72–90%, whereas in natural phytoremediation (natural attenuation with native vegetation) at 10 other oil-contaminated sites, per-year decontamination was as high as that only after 5 years. Rhizodegradation is supposed as the principal mechanisms of both phytoremediation approaches.
