Phytostabilization and Retirement of Mercury from Wet Ecosystems

湿生态系统中汞的植物稳定和退役

• 批准号: 8001424
• 负责人: MARK P ELLESS
• 金额: $ 10万
• 依托单位: EDENSPACE SYSTEMS CORPORATION
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2010
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2010-08-03 至 2012-01-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/8001424
• 关键词: Acid Rain; Address; Air; Area; Binding; Bioavailable; Biological Availability; Biomass; Chemicals; Ecosystem; Environment; Evaluation; Excision; Exposure to; Foundations; Government; Harvest; Hazardous Waste; Health; Human; In Situ; Insecta; Institution; International; Mercury; Methods; Minerals; Neurotoxins; Oryctolagus cuniculus; Performance; Persons; Phase; Plants; Poaceae; Precipitation; Procedures; Process; Public Health; Refractory; Research; Retirement; Risk; Scale Insects; Site; Small Business Innovation Research Grant; Soil; Solutions; Sulfides; Sulfur; System; Techniques; Testing; Toxic effect; Trace Elements; United States National Institutes of Health; Vascular Plant; Water; Work; cost; feeding; foot; innovation; landfill; novel; phase 2 study; planetary Atmosphere; public health relevance; receptor; remediation; research study; toxic metal; toxicity characteristics; uptake

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Because environmental mercury poses significant challenges to global public health, reducing mercury levels in air, soil, and water is an international priority. Widespread distribution of mercury (Hg) by the atmosphere makes current methods of addressing Hg contamination, such as excavation and replacement of soil, too expensive to be practical given the typically large scale of remediation activity required. This Phase I SBIR proposal seeks to develop an innovative, low-cost method of extracting Hg from wet ecosystems using a recently-identified Hg-hyperaccumulating plant species. The accumulated mercury readily binds with reduced sulfur in the plant to form HgS, an extremely refractory (highly stable) chemical form that effectively retires the mercury from its global cycle. This process utilizes sulfur (S), a nutritionally essential trace element that is naturally accumulated by plants from soils to render the accumulated mercury biologically inactive. Because the accumulated mercury is trapped in an insoluble, non-bioavailable form, the mercury stored in the plant may then be allowed to remain on-site, thereby eliminating the need for harvest and disposal, reducing the burden on hazardous waste landfills. Following the Phase I demonstration of high plant accumulation of mercury, in planta conversion of environmental mercury to HgS, and decreased bioavailability as assessed in an insect feeding study, Phase II tasks will explore methods of increasing Hg uptake, assess speciation of sulfur from the rhizosphere through the plant, assess the mercury phytoextraction performance of the Hg- hyperaccumulator at two field demonstration sites, and conduct in situ ecological risk studies at each of these sites to confirm the lower risk to ecological receptors of plants storing its accumulated mercury as HgS. The end result of the project will be to establish the foundation for a low-cost, solar powered method of removing and stabilizing mercury over large areas of soil and large volumes of water. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: This NIH Phase I SBIR proposal seeks to retire mercury from the environment by inducing the formation of insoluble mercury sulfide (HgS) in a recently identified Hg-accumulating plant species. If successful, large areas of soil contaminated with mercury can be remediated.

由于环境汞对全球公共健康构成重大挑战，因此减少空气、土壤和水中的汞含量是国际优先事项。汞（Hg）在大气中的广泛分布使得目前解决汞污染的方法（例如挖掘和更换土壤）过于昂贵，因为通常需要大规模的补救活动。该第一阶段SBIR提案旨在开发一种创新的低成本方法，利用最近发现的汞超积累植物物种从潮湿生态系统中提取汞。积累的汞很容易与植物中的还原硫结合形成HgS，这是一种极难降解（高度稳定）的化学形式，可有效地将汞从其全球循环中退出。这一过程利用硫（S），一种营养必需的微量元素，由植物从土壤中自然积累，使积累的汞失去生物活性。由于累积的汞以不溶性、非生物可利用的形式被捕获，因此储存在工厂中的汞可以留在现场，从而消除了收获和处置的需要，减轻了危险废物填埋场的负担。在第一阶段的示范中，植物对汞的高积累、环境汞在植物体内转化为HgS以及昆虫饲养研究中评估的生物利用度降低，第二阶段的任务将探索增加汞吸收的方法，评估硫从根际通过植物的形态形成，评估两个实地示范点的汞超富集植物对汞的提取性能，并在这些地点进行实地生态风险研究，以确认以硫化氢形式储存汞的植物对生态受体的风险较低。该项目的最终结果将是为一种低成本的太阳能方法奠定基础，这种方法可以在大面积土壤和大量水中去除和稳定汞。 公共卫生关系：美国国立卫生研究院第一阶段SBIR提案旨在通过诱导最近确定的汞积累植物物种中形成不溶性硫化汞（HgS）来从环境中淘汰汞。如果成功的话，受汞污染的大面积土壤可以得到补救。