ABSTRACT
Phytoremediation uses living higher plants for cleaning up of environment contaminated with organic or inorganic pollutants by removing, sequestering, or chemically decomposing the pollutant (1,2). Microorganisms fostered by plants in their root zone may enhance the availability of the pollutant for uptake by the plant root system and may efficiently contribute to the degradation of organic pollutants (3-5). From the point of view of phytoremediation a plant may be viewed as a solar-driven pump-and-treat system, which may contain a contaminant plume and prevent the spread of contamination by reducing the movement of contaminated water and the erosional transport of contaminated soil. The efficiency of plants as detoxifiers, filters, or traps has been proven in the cleaning up soils polluted with crude oil, explosives, landfill leachates, metals, pesticides, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, and solvents (1,2).
