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Soil Xenobiotics and Their Phyto-chemical Remediation

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Xenobiotics in the Soil Environment

Part of the book series: Soil Biology ((SOILBIOL,volume 49))

Abstract

Soil xenobiotics are mainly foreign substances polluting soil. They include dioxins, halocarbons having halogens in pesticides including polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs ), synthetic polymers, and alkyl-benzyl sulfonates in detergents and mineral oil mixtures. They enter soils via the addition of agrochemicals, anthropic pollution, fallout from air, and volatilization. Plants can remove some of these xenobiotics by a process called phyto-remediation. This depends on plant species, environment, plant roots and its leaves, and growth magnitude. Some as cucurbits ( Cucurbita pepo and C. maxima) have big storing organs. Many mechanisms are done by plant to alleviate or nullify xenobiotics harm. A3-phase metabolism on xenobiotics could occur, i.e., (a) transformation changing the substance, (b) compartmentation confining it inside a confined space within plant tissues, and (c) conjugation joining two or more compounds together. Some microorganisms can degrade many xenobiotics in soil; however microenvironment conditions including pH, temperature, and others must be conducive to degradation. Chemo-remediation incurs using chemicals to detoxify/decrease xenobiotics in soil. Chemicals include solvents, oxidizers, acids, chelators, and immobilizers. Oxidizers dissociate xenobiotics into simpler non-harmful substances. Acids include amino-poly-carboxylic acids, natural acids, low-molecular-weight organic acids, humic acids, ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA), hydroxyethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (HEDTA), diethylenetriaminepentaacetic acid (DTPA), trans-1,2-cyclohexylene dinitrilo-tetraacetic acid (CDTA), ethylene glycol tetra-acetic acid (EGTA), (ethylenediamine-N,N′-bis(o-hydroxyphenyl)acetic acid (EDDHA), N-(2-hydroxyethyl)iminodiacetic acid (HEIDA), and (N,N0-bis(2-hydroxybenzyl)ethylenediamine-N,N′-diacetic acid (HBED) of the solvent materials, solvents which dissolve non-water-soluble substances such as polychlorinated biphenyl (PCBs).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Soils and Water, Faculty of Agriculture, Benha University, 13637, Benha, Egypt

    Haythum M. Salem, Ali Abdel-Salam & Mohamed A. Abdel-Salam

  2. Department of Crop Sciences, Faculty of Agriculture, Menoufia University, 32511, Shibin El-Kom, Egypt

    Mahmoud F. Seleiman

  3. Department of Agricultural Sciences, University of Helsinki, 27, 00014, Helsinki, Finland

    Mahmoud F. Seleiman

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  1. Haythum M. Salem
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  2. Ali Abdel-Salam
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  3. Mohamed A. Abdel-Salam
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  4. Mahmoud F. Seleiman
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Correspondence to Mahmoud F. Seleiman .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Meteorology, COMSATS Inst. of Information Technology Department of Meteorology, Islamabad, Pakistan

    Muhammad Zaffar Hashmi

  2. Amity Inst of Microbial Technology, Amity University Uttar Pradesh Amity Inst of Microbial Technology, Noida, Uttar Pradesh, India

    Vivek Kumar

  3. Amity Inst of Microbial Technology, Amity University Uttar Pradesh Amity Inst of Microbial Technology, Noida, Uttar Pradesh, India

    Ajit Varma

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Salem, H.M., Abdel-Salam, A., Abdel-Salam, M.A., Seleiman, M.F. (2017). Soil Xenobiotics and Their Phyto-chemical Remediation. In: Hashmi, M., Kumar, V., Varma, A. (eds) Xenobiotics in the Soil Environment. Soil Biology, vol 49. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-47744-2_18

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