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.

描述（由申请人提供）：由于环境汞对全球公共卫生构成重大挑战，因此降低空气、土壤和水中的汞含量是国际优先事项。由于汞 (Hg) 在大气中的广泛分布，使得当前解决汞污染的方法（例如挖掘和更换土壤）由于通常需要大规模的修复活动而过于昂贵而不实用。第一阶段 SBIR 提案旨在开发一种创新、低成本的方法，利用最近发现的汞超富集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还原的硫结合形成硫化汞，这是一种极其难熔（高度稳定）的化学形式，可以有效地将汞从其全球循环中排出。该过程利用硫 (S)，这是一种营养必需的微量元素，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、不可生物利用的形式被捕获，因此工厂中储存的汞可以保留在现场，从而消除了收集和处置的需要，减少了危险废物填埋场的负担。继第一阶段示范了植物中汞的高积累、在植物中将环境汞转化为 HgS 以及昆虫喂养研究中评估的生物利用度降低之后，第二阶段的任务将探索增加汞吸收的方法，评估根际硫的形态通过该工厂，评估两个现场示范点的汞超积累器的汞植物提取性能，并在每个地点进行原位生态风险研究，以确认对植物生态受体的风险较低将其积累的汞存储为 HgS。该项目的最终结果将为低成本、太阳能驱动的方法奠定基础，以去除和稳定大面积土壤和大量水中的汞。 公共健康相关性：NIH 第一阶段 SBIR 提案旨在通过诱导最近发现的汞积累植物物种形成不溶性硫化汞 (HgS)，从环境中消除汞。如果成功，大面积受汞污染的土壤可以得到修复。