Phytoremediation

The present work is an attempt to include important aspects of phytoremediation.The term PHYTOREMEDIATION ("phyto" means plants & the latin suffix "remedium" means to clean or restore) actually refers to diverse collection of plants based technologies that use either naturally occuring or genetically engineered plants for cleaning contaminated environments. Phytoremediation consists of four different plant based technologies each having a different mechanism of action for the remediation of metal polluted soil,sediment or water. These include: RHIZOFILTERATION, PHYTOSTABILISATION, PHYTOVOLATILISATION, PHYTOEXTRACTION & PHYTODETOXIFICATION. Vetiveria is a HYPERACCUMULATOR PLANT than Cymbopogon which can be used for phytoremedial purposes. Vetiveria can tolerate heavy metal stress conditions and has the capacity to decontaminate heavy metals from the contaminated sites due to its good biomass ,fast growth and wide distribution.