can anyone tell me about biocrust (algae and cyanobacteria) used for treatment soil contaminated with heavy metal such as (pb , cd)
and how long biocrust can hold heavy metals
You touch two issues with your question here:
1) heavy metals in biocrusts, where DOI: 10.1007/s00300-013-1399-0 might be a good starting point for some literature search.
2) For phytoremediation you should keep in mind that heavy metals do not disappear once they get bound to biomass. You could get rid of heavy metals in soil only if you removed the crust cover, and one could expect removal of high amounts of heavy metals from soil only after repeated biocrust removal, which brings me to the usually very slow biocrust growth rates. Another issue is the soil layer where heavy metals get extracted from, because biocrusts typically reside on the very surface and do not penetrate soil into depth like roots of vascular plants do. Surely they are more efficient in capturing heavy metals deposited from the atmosphere rather than extracting them from soil.
To the best of my knowledge, there is no study in the literature dealing with the use of biocrusts for phytoremediation.
Our article discusses uranium in cryptobiotic crusts. It might be interesting for you.
Article Effects of Organic Matter on the Distribution of Uranium in ...
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