The purpose of this study was to investigate the
effect of phytoremediation on soils contaminated with heavy
crude oil using plants infected by mycorrhizal fungi. Five
plant species,
Vetiveria zizanioides
,
Bidens pilosa
,
Chloris
barbata
,
Eleusine indica
, and
Imperata cylindrica
, infected
with the species of mycorrhizal fungi
Glomus mosseae
, were
selected for this study. The degradation of total petroleum
hydrocarbons in soils and several physiological parameters
of plants such as shoot length and biomass were analyzed.
Out of the 5 plant species tested, only
V. zizanioides,
B. pilosa, and
E. indica could take up the
G. mosseae. Out of
these three,
V. zizanioides showed the greatest growth
(biomass) in soils with 100,000 mg kg
-1 total petroleum
hydrocarbons. In addition,
B. pilosa infected with
G. mosseae
was found to be able to increase degradation by 9 %
under an initial total petroleum hydrocarbons concentration
of 30,000 mg kg
-1 in soils after 64 days. We conclude that
plants infected with mycorrhizal fungi can enhance the
phytoremediation efficiency of soils contaminated with high
concentrations of heavy oil.
