Current technical perspective and application of aquatic weeds in phytoremediation

Anthropogenic pollution inputs are a cause of great concern. Continuous inputs of polluting material such as heavy metals, pesticides, fertilizer and other organic, inorganic material are burdening the environment, specially the aquatic bodies. Water bodies when overloaded with polluting material causes high level of stress and becomes depleted with dissolved oxygen, life sustaining factors. These stressful conditions can be resisted by certain aquatic weeds. Some of them even thrive in such conditions and accumulate large amount of heavy metals and other xenobiotic compounds. These stress sustaining and thriving species could prove to be useful for wastewater treatment strategies collectively referred as phytoremediation and bioremediation strategies. The current chapter mainly deals with discussion regarding these technologies in aquatic environments utilizing such aquatic plants. Plants taken in consideration for discussion include water hyacinth and duckweed. It has been reported that these plants are efficient enough to reduce water pollution of textile industries, as they are good bioaccumulator and accumulate contaminants into their tissues. Water hyacinth has high capacity of absorbing various toxic organic substances from the contaminated water. It has been reported that duckweed is very efficient for reducing the biochemical oxygen demand, percentage of heavy metals, chemical oxygen demand, orthophosphate, nitrate, and ammonia during its exposure to wastewater. The current review chapter focuses enough on these specific capabilities of plants.