Sustainable Land Management: Growing Miscanthus in Soils Contaminated with Heavy Metals

Abstract

Miscanthus grows well in some marginal and contaminated soils, and it has the potential to be used as a biofuel. Copper and cobalt are heavy metals that sometimes are present as contaminants in soils at concentrations that may impact the safety of products that are harvested. Laboratory research has been conducted with Miscanthus sacchariflorus M. to investigate metal uptake of copper and cobalt because metal concentrations in the harvested parts of miscanthus are important for biofuel applications. The results show that the use of miscanthus for biofuel from soil contaminated by heavy metals depends mainly on the nature of contaminated metals: cobalt was detected only for highest treated concentration of metal and mainly in the roots. The highest concentration of copper was detected in the roots however this metal was detected in stems and leaves of miscanthus as well. Miscanthus biomass harvested from cobalt contaminated soil may be used for energy production because the harvested part accumulated only limited traces of the metal. The experimental results are in reasonable agreement with other results from the literature.