Distribution of Metals within Different Plant Parts of Biomass Gathered from a Brownfield Land Located in Gyöngyösoroszi, Hungary

Truong, Phi Dinh and Kovács, Helga and Dobó, Zsolt (2021) Distribution of Metals within Different Plant Parts of Biomass Gathered from a Brownfield Land Located in Gyöngyösoroszi, Hungary. Materials Science and Engineering, 46 (1). pp. 14-23. ISSN 2063-6792

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Abstract

The development of modern technologies requests increasing demand for rare earth elements (REEs) and noble metals (NMs). That has spurred mining activities and has released metals into the environment as a consequence. Phytoextraction uses plants to accu-mulate metals into their shoots enabling metal removal from brownfields (phytoremediation) or recovery of valuable metals (phytomining). Nevertheless, the occurrence and distribution of NMs, REEs in biomass coming from contaminated lands have not been intensively inves-tigated yet. In this study, different types of woody biomass including root, trunk, branches, and leaf were collected from a metal-polluted location in Gyöngyösoroszi, Hungary. Afterward, the har-vested plants were combusted at 500 °C to generate ashes for ICP (Inductively Coupled Plasma) analysis. Elemental analytical results show that a couple of NMs such as Ag, Au, Pt were found and distributed differently in various biomass ash samples. In specific, the highest Ag concen-tration is around 5.4 mg/kg achieved in the root ash. Meanwhile, the greatest number of Au and Pt is about 1.8 mg/kg obtained in the trunk and leaf ash respectively. Besides, several REEs with substantial quantities were identified in the contaminated biomass ashes. The significant results observed in the root ash are approximately 47.8 mg/kg Ce and 30.5 mg/kg Nd. The concentration of REEs in root ash is higher than in the above-ground biomass ash with the decreasing order of root ash, leaf ash, trunk, and branches ash. It can be explained by the distri-bution of REEs in root or leaf is usually greater than other plant parts. These valuable findings indicate that phytomining is a promising approach for recycling NMs, REEs from soils via plants. Moreover, solid residues obtained from polluted biomass are potential metal resources.

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