Bioremediation of PCBs from contamined soil

摘要

It was shown that some biological systems including bacteria, fungi and plants can be used for the removal of toxic compounds from the environment (1,2,3). In natural conditions these organisms usually show mutual cooperation and support each other's abilities. It was shown that certain plant compounds present in root exudates may serve as natural substrates for the growth and sometimes induction of the genes of the biodegradative pathway of PCBs in bacteria (4). In our study we grew plants of different species in an area contaminated with PCBs and we tested the ability of biological systems to degrade PCBs over 7 months. In pot experiments, we tested the ability of different plant and bacterial species to degrade PCBs. We also followed differences in microbial growth between nonvegetated and vegetated soil, and in the rhizoplane and rhizosphere. This study showed the beneficial effect of plants on microbial growth. The results from field conditions and pot experiments were compared with those obtained in laboratory experiments performed with plant tissue cultures of the same species cultivated in vitro.