Assessment of plants growing on gold mine wastes for their potential to remove heavy metals from contaminated soils

摘要

Soils contaminated by heavy metals may pose a threat to human health and the environment. Phytoremediation requires the selection of suitable species. This paper reports a study to assess the capacity of native plants grown on waste dumps and soil affected by tailings material to accumulate and translocate Cr, Ni, Co, Cu, Zn, Cd, and Pb at a gold mine in Ethiopia. Overall, the naturally growing plants, though with no hyperaccumulation, could be very useful for phytoremediation of soils affected by polymetallic pollution.