The Phytoremidiation Technique for Cleaning Up Contaminated Soil by Geranium (pelargonium roseum)

Phytoremediation is the biotechnological application of plants to detoxify pollutants, and is an ideal and modern technique for environmental clean-up. Regarding the vast industrial waste materials and sewages from a lot factories and different chemical fertilizers and pesticides have caused contamination of soils in capital city Tehran , potential ability of Geranium (pelargonium roseum) to phytoextract lead, cadmium, Cobalt, chrome and nickel was investigated. Results indicated that the younger plants have more potential to uptake and concentrate the studied heavy metals than the older ones and the uptake rate is significantly affected by the plant accumulation and the soil pH. Our studies demonstrated the ability of several high biomass pelargonium roseum cultivars to hyper-accumulate lead, cadmium, nickel and chrome on contaminated soils in Tehran and other polluted cities and preventing vegetables, crops and other products to absorb toxic heavy metals. Besides helping farmers who grow crops on acid soils, phytoremediation research findings can be used by other organization in government and academia and by environmental consultants, and industry groups complying with cleanup of contaminated sites. Other fast growing plants with high biomass and good metal uptake ability are needed in Iran in order to clean contaminated soils especially near the mines.