Clean up with ... a foam

Photo: Funaria hygrometrica

Funaria hygrometrica is able to accumulate and support very large quantities of lead. An ecological solution for decontaminating water and soil?

Immune and reproductive system toxicity, anemia, renal impairment, impact on brain and nervous system development ... World Health Organization list of possible consequences of lead poisoning all about the killer portrait of a killer. To combat water and soil contamination as a result of industrial activities, remediation solutions exist: excavation, chemical sedimentation, ion exchange resins. But they are hungry for fossil energy.

An alternative, which has been developing for several decades, uses the ability of certain plants to immobilize, degrade or accumulate pollutants. The Environment and Energy Management Agency has shown that these methods of bioremediation cost much less than mechanical and physicochemical approaches. A team from the Riken Institute in Japan has recently turned its attention to Funaria hygrometrica, also known as "fire foam", which is commonly found on sites polluted with heavy metals, such as ancient sites. mining.

Cell walls

The results of their experiments show that it is capable of adsorbing a very large quantity of lead. The accumulation is mainly at the cell walls, which then thicken. But the peculiarity of F. hygrometrica lies in its fixing capacity: it can store lead until it represents 74% of its dry mass! And this, without seriously impacting its growth, unlike other foams. Finally, it also accumulates, although more weakly, other metals such as gold, chromium or platinum.

So, the fire foam, new weapon fatal in the hunt for metallic trace elements (ETM)? Not sure, tempers Claude Grison, director of the laboratory of bio-inspired chemistry and ecological innovations, near Montpellier. According to her, the process "will be difficult to industrialize because the yield of biomass is low" . Indeed, Japanese researchers did not use the entire plant, but cell cultures corresponding to the earliest stages of growth of the foam. To treat large volumes of polluted water would therefore require to control the cultivation of these cells on a very large scale.

Another obstacle, lead accumulates mainly in soils, because it is very slightly soluble in water, says Philippe Bataillard, Bureau of Geological and Mining Research. Treating polluted soils would therefore require the addition of a step of resusing the lead, to make it bioavailable. Two limits which will have to be circumvented so that F. hygrometrica one day out of the laboratories.

Source: larecherche.fr

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