Combination of biochar amendment and phytoremediation for hydrocarbon removal in petroleum-contaminated soil

Environmental Science and Pollution Research, Aug 2016

Remediation of soils contaminated with petroleum is a challenging task. Four different bioremediation strategies, including natural attenuation, biochar amendment, phytoremediation with ryegrass, and a combination of biochar and ryegrass, were investigated with greenhouse pot experiments over a 90-day period. The results showed that planting ryegrass in soil can significantly improve the removal rate of total petroleum hydrocarbons (TPHs) and the number of microorganisms. Within TPHs, the removal rate of total n-alkanes (45.83 %) was higher than that of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (30.34 %). The amendment of biochar did not result in significant improvement of TPH removal. In contrast, it showed a clear negative impact on the growth of ryegrass and the removal of TPHs by ryegrass. The removal rate of TPHs was significantly lower after the amendment of biochar. The results indicated that planting ryegrass is an effective remediation strategy, while the amendment of biochar may not be suitable for the phytoremediation of soil contaminated with petroleum hydrocarbons.

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Combination of biochar amendment and phytoremediation for hydrocarbon removal in petroleum-contaminated soil

Combination of biochar amendment and phytoremediation for hydrocarbon removal in petroleum-contaminated soil Tao Han 0 1 Zhipeng Zhao 0 1 Mark Bartlam 0 1 Yingying Wang 0 1 Editorial Responsible: Hailong Wang 0 College of Life Sciences, Nankai University , Tianjin 300071 , China 1 Key Laboratory of Pollution Processes and Environmental Criteria (Ministry of Education), Tianjin Key Laboratory of Environmental Remediation and Pollution Control, College of Environmental Science and Engineering, Nankai University , Tianjin 300071 , China 2 Yingying Wang Remediation of soils contaminated with petroleum is a challenging task. Four different bioremediation strategies, including natural attenuation, biochar amendment, phytoremediation with ryegrass, and a combination of biochar and ryegrass, were investigated with greenhouse pot experiments over a 90-day period. The results showed that planting ryegrass in soil can significantly improve the removal rate of total petroleum hydrocarbons (TPHs) and the number of microorganisms. Within TPHs, the removal rate of total nalkanes (45.83 %) was higher than that of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (30.34 %). The amendment of biochar did not result in significant improvement of TPH removal. In contrast, it showed a clear negative impact on the growth of ryegrass and the removal of TPHs by ryegrass. The removal rate of TPHs was significantly lower after the amendment of biochar. The results indicated that planting ryegrass is an effective remediation strategy, while the amendment of biochar may not be suitable for the phytoremediation of soil contaminated with petroleum hydrocarbons. Petroleum hydrocarbons; Ryegrass; Biochar; Phytoremediation Introduction The rapid development of the global economy has led to considerable environmental pollution by a wide range of persistent organic and inorganic pollutants (Gaskin and Bentham 2010; Zhang et al. 2010) . Petroleum products are widely used in modern society and have become one of the most important environmental pollutants (Wang et al. 2010, 2012; Zhang et al. 2010) . Petroleum is a mix of different compounds, consisting mainly of saturated hydrocarbons, aromatic hydrocarbons, resins, and asphaltenes (Liu et al. 2014) . Petroleum is reported to cause environmental risks in the soil ecological syste m (Wang et al. 2012 ), such as inhibition of plant growth, damage to soil structure, destruction of groundwater quality, and so on (Cai et al. 2010) . Moreover, the hazardous chemicals in petroleum also pose serious threats to human health (Anyika et al. 2015) . Considerable efforts have been made for the remediation of petroleum-contaminated sites. Phytoremediation is one of the most favorable remediation techniques since it is both costeffective and environmentally friendly (Gaskin et al. 2010; AlMansoory et al. 2015) . Plants can have a number of effects, including degradation, transformation, assimilation, metabolism, and detoxification of hazardous pollutants from soils and aquatic and atmospheric sites (Cai et al. 2010) . Several plant species, such as ryegrass, have been successfully applied to the phytoremediation of soil contaminated with organic and inorganic pollutants (Khan et al. 2013; Mimmo et al. 2015; Lu et al. 2015) . The question of how to improve the efficiency and optimize the conditions of phytoremediation is one of the major concerns. It was reported that both the physicochemical properties and microbial activities of soil had a strong impact on the effectiveness of phytoremediation (Guo et al. 2014) . In recent years, the use of biochar as a soil amendment has been the subject of increasing attention (Tang et al. 2013) . Biochar is formed by burning biomass under hypoxia and low temperature and is a low-density charred material (Bastos et al. 2014; Mukherjee et al. 2014; Tang et al. 2013) . It was reported that biochar could change the soil physicochemical properties (Brennan et al. 2014) . For example, it could increase the soil pH (Beesley and Marmiroli 2011; Mukherjee et al. 2014; Schmidt et al. 2014) , strengthen the water retaining capacity of soil (Evangelou et al. 2014; Yao et al. 2012) , raise the soil fertility (Mia et al. 2014; Steinbeiss et al. 2009) , reduce the leaching of soluble macronutrients (Lucchini et al. 2014; Quilliam et al. 2013a) , and heighten carbon sequestration (Bastos et al. 2014; Méndez et al. 2012) . These lead to potentially beneficial effects on crop productivity, plant establishment, and growth; mitigating climate change by sequestrating C from atmosphere into soil; and improving moisture, nutrient retention, and microbial activity (Brennan et al. 2014) . Meanwhile, biochar has also been used as a promising material in environmental remediation applications (Qin et al. 2013; Ahmad et al. 2014; GarciaDelgado et al. 2015) . For instance, biochar has been applied as a novel carbonaceous material to adsorb metals in soil and water (Be (...truncated)


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Tao Han, Zhipeng Zhao, Mark Bartlam, Yingying Wang. Combination of biochar amendment and phytoremediation for hydrocarbon removal in petroleum-contaminated soil, Environmental Science and Pollution Research, 2016, pp. 21219-21228, Volume 23, Issue 21, DOI: 10.1007/s11356-016-7236-6