Phytoremediation of chromium contaminated soil using Sorghum plant

Industrial waste is one of the most important sources of contamination in the surface environment. The impact of heavy metals in soils, plants, animals and humans is due to the unabated expansion of toxic effects. The toxic wastes generated are treated by physio-chemical processes in which “Bioremediation” is the microbial clean up approach. Plant based remediation (Phytoremediation) is an emerging biotechnology tool, for cleaning metal polluted or contaminated soil. The present study deals with phytoremediation of chromium metal polluted soil of Ranipet Tanneries utilising sorghum plant, which is one of the best “hyper-accumulators” for the phytoremediation of metal polluted sites. The impact of chromium on the biomass and chlorophyll content and also the effect of addition of biosolids like vermicompost on the bioaccumulation efficiency of the plant were investigated. The results indicated that there is significant reduction of biomass of the plant with increased dosage of chromium. It is also observed that addition of vermicompost to the contaminated soil improves the biomass of the plants thus making room for more bioaccumulation. Pytoremediation is found to be cost-effective and highly efficient in remediating the heavy metal polluted sites.