Document Type
Honors Thesis
Abstract
Cadmium is an extremely deleterious heavy metal characterized by high toxicity, environmental disruptiveness and difficult removal. Utilizing an aquatic macrophyte, Eichhornia crassipes, as a phytoremediant of cadmium has been shown to be experimentally viable and less environmentally degrading than conventional methods of heavy metal remediation. To further understand the time required to optimize cadmium uptake and minimize the rerelease of contaminants, E. crassipes was studied to identify the plateau of cadmium extraction. The experimental plants were housed in aquatic environments with cadmium concentrations of 5 ppm for 144 hours. Water samples were analyzed in atmosphere in a Shimadzu EDX- 7000 Energy Dispersive X-ray Fluorescence Spectrometer for 100 seconds per sample to determine cadmium concentration. A singular plateau trend was not observed in this study; instead, cadmium concentrations exhibited an undulating pattern in which cadmium uptake and release occurred multiple times within a 144-hour window.
Publication Date
12-1-2016
Language
English
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-Share Alike 4.0 International License.
Recommended Citation
Spenrath, Micalah, "IDENTIFICATION OF THE PLATEAU OF CADMIUM EXTRACTION FROM AQUEOUS SOLUTION BY INVASIVE MACROPHYTE: EICHHORNIA CRASSIPES" (2016). 2016 Fall Honors Capstone Projects. 6.
https://mavmatrix.uta.edu/honors_fall2016/6