Authors: Konstantinos C Makris Rupali Datta Dibyendu Sarkar Kabindra M Shakya Devanand Pachanoor Padmini Das
Publish Date: 2007/05/26
Volume: 295, Issue: 1-2, Pages: 229-237
Abstract
Previous research in our laboratory investigated the effectiveness of a common agrochemical urea used as a chaotropic agent to facilitate 246trinitrotoluene TNT removal by vetiver grass Vetiveria zizanioides L Chaotropic agents disrupt water structure increasing solubilization of hydrophobic compounds TNT and enhancing plant TNT uptake Our findings showed that urea significantly enhanced TNT uptake kinetics by vetiver We hypothesized that the beneficial effect of urea on the overall TNT uptake by vetiver grass was not plantspecific We explored this hypothesis by testing the ability of wheat Triticum aestivum L in removing TNT from aqueous media in the presence of urea Results showed that untreated no urea wheat exhibited a slow kinetically limited TNT uptake that was nearly half of the ureatreated wheat TNT capacity 250 mg kg−1 Chaotropic effects of urea were illustrated by the significant P 0001 increase in the TNT secondorder reaction rate constants over those of the untreated no urea controls Plant TNT speciation showed that TNT and several of its metabolites were detected in both root and shoot compartments of the plant allowing for 110 and 36 recovery for the untreated and 01 urea treated plants The lower recovery of the ureatreated plants was attributed to a number of unknown polar TNT metabolites
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