Chinese scientists use plants to battle pollution

22 February 2006

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Beijing, Feb 22 Chinese scientists are now growing poison-accumulating plants to 'suck up' poisonous elements, mostly heavy metals like arsenic, copper and zinc, from polluted soil to repair contaminated lands.

"In some parts of China, scientists have grown poison-accumulating plants, widely regarded as a 'hyperaccumulators' in academic circles, on poisonous soil to accumulate heavy metals," said Chen Tongbin, a researcher with the Geographic Science and Resources institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS).

Chen's research team has begun to renovate about 333.3 hectares of arsenic polluted fields in south China's Huanjiang County.

According to Chen, water containing minerals at the upper reaches of rivers always pollute lower watercourses during floods in south China's Yunnan and Gianxi provinces, causing crop losses or even infertility in large areas of lower-reach fields.

"The soil pollution in Guangxi is serious. Soil contamination is the most dangerous because it is hidden, slow and fundamental," Chen told Xinhua.

Chen is leading the research on soil recovery technology that is funded by the state high technology advancement plan and was initiated in March 1986.

A global leader in technology for collecting arsenic from soil, Chen's team proved that a brake fern widely found in southern China, with strong ability to draw arsenic from the soil.

"The plant could survive a heavily polluted environment with arsenic density of three percent," Chen stated.

It is estimated that soil recovery technologies through plants might have a market worth $2 billion.

His team has zeroed in on 16 such hyper accumulators, found in China itself through field surveys and greenhouse cultivation. They have also developed several additives, which might strengthen their poison collecting abilities.

Chen has also called for intensified government effort to alert the public to the danger of soil contamination and promote legislation in this regard.(IAN)

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