Natural plant selection for radioactive waste remediation

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.