Thin, branching roots help wetland plants trap forever chemicals
Silva HC, Awad J, Navarro D, Myers B, Juhasz A
Phytoremediation
The floating wetland plants engineers choose for stormwater cleanup aren't interchangeable, since a plant's root architecture and the local water's saltiness can make or break how much PFAS pollution it actually filters out.
Researchers grew ten wetland plants in stormwater spiked with PFAS, the long-lasting 'forever chemicals' found in everyday products, to see which plants were best at pulling them out of the water. Plants with fine, bushy root systems, like River Tussock and Spiny Sedge, did the best job, but some PFAS types stuck in the roots while others moved up into the leaves and stems. Saltier water made the plants worse at absorbing the shorter, more mobile PFAS chemicals, which matters a lot for anyone designing floating wetlands to clean up polluted waterways.
Key Findings
Thin, highly branched root systems correlated with greater PFAS uptake across the ten species tested.
Short-chain PFAS (like PFBS and PFPeA) translocated readily into shoots (translocation factors 0.4-34.0 and 0.5-24.6), while long-chain PFOS stayed mostly in roots (0.2-2.8).
Raising salinity from 200 to 1000 mg/L significantly suppressed uptake and translocation of short-chain PFAS, especially PFPeA, but had little effect on long-chain compounds.
chevron_right Technical Summary
Scientists tested ten Australian wetland plants to see which best soak up PFAS 'forever chemicals' from contaminated stormwater, finding that plants with thin, branching roots pulled in the most, and that saltier water weakened their ability to absorb shorter-chain PFAS.
Abstract Preview
Original paper
Influence of root morphology and salinity on PFAS uptake by ten Australian wetland plant species.
Constructed Floating Wetlands (CFWs) show promise as nature-based technology for attenuating per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in surface water. However, few studies have investigated plan...
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