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Natural Plant Selection for Radioactive Waste Remediation

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Radionuclide Contamination and Remediation Through Plants

Abstract

Phytoremediation of radioactive waste is a process that uses plants to remove, transfer, or immobilize radionuclides from the contaminated soil, sediment, sludge, or water, and it is a useful method for treating large-scale low-level radionuclide contamination. However, there have not been established criteria which can be utilized to screen out suitable plant species that are capable of remediating the radioactive waste. In this chapter, important factors influencing the selection of natural plant to remediate radioactive waste, including the characteristics of radioactive waste, the vegetation plant species and vegetation community composition in the radioactive waste deposited area, the concentration of a target radionuclide in the plant, the biomass of the plant, and the concentration of a target radionuclide in the radioactive, are analyzed, and the criteria based on the phytoremediation factor (PF) have been proposed for the selection of natural plant to remediate radioactive waste.

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Acknowledgment

The presented work was supported by Defense Industrial Technology Development Program (B3720132001), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (51274124), the Program of Science and Technology Department of Hunan Province (No. 2010GK2025), and the Program of Scientific Research Foundation of Education Department of Hunan Province (No. 10A103, 10C1134).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Discipline Laboratory for National Defense for Biotechnology in Uranium Mining and Hydrometallurgy, University of South China, Hengyang, 421001, Hunan, People’s Republic of China

    Nan Hu, Dexin Ding & Guangyue Li

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  1. Nan Hu
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  2. Dexin Ding
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  3. Guangyue Li
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Correspondence to Dexin Ding .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Institut für Radioökologie und Strahlenschutz (IRS),, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Universität Hannover, Hannover, Germany

    Dharmendra Kumar Gupta

  2. Institut für Radioökologie und Strahlenschutz (IRS),, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Universität Hannover, Hannover, Germany

    Clemens Walther

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Hu, N., Ding, D., Li, G. (2014). Natural Plant Selection for Radioactive Waste Remediation. In: Gupta, D., Walther, C. (eds) Radionuclide Contamination and Remediation Through Plants. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-07665-2_2

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