Fuel fumes and foliage: The fate of speciated gasoline VOCs during phytoremediation and their impact on the bacterial phenotype
Year: 2024
Type: article
Abstract: The capacity of indoor plants including green walls to capture, deposit and remediate individual volatile organic compounds (VOCs) has been well documented. However, in realistic settings, plant systems are exposed to a complex mixture of VOCs from highly varied various emission sources. Gasoline vapour is one of the major sources of these emissions, containing high concentrations of the carcinogens benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene and xylene (BTEX). Using both solid phase micro extraction (SPME) and quick, easy, cheap, effective, rugged and safe (QuEChERS) sampling techniques, we assessed the dynamics of individual speciated gasoline VOC phytoremediation from the air and uptake within green wall plant species and growth substrates within a small passive green wall system, along with quantifying the phenotypic changes within the plant-associated bacterial communities resulting from gasoline exposure. Over 8 h the green wall system achieved 100% removal of atmospheric benzene, 1,2,3-trimethyl, eicosane and hexadecane, benzene 1,3-diethyl-; 1,3,5 cycloheptatriene,7- ethyl and carbonic acid eicosyl vinyl ester. All plant species tested demonstrated the accumulation 45 petrochemical VOCs (pVOCs) with Spathiphyllum wallisii successfully accumulating the majority of pVOC functional groups after 24 h of gasoline exposure. Within the plants phyllospheric bacterial communities, changes in both cellular complexity and granularity appeared to increase as a result of gasoline exposure, while cell size diminished. This work provides novel findings on the VOC removal processes of botanical systems for realistic and highly toxic VOC profiles. • All plant species demonstrated an accumulation of a number of petrochemical VOC's. • S . wallisi was observed as the most efficient accumulating the majority of pVOC functional groups after 24 h of gasoline exposure. • Gasoline exposure appeared to favour shifts to smaller less complex and lower DNA active microbial communities within soil and rhizosphere regions.
Source: Environmental Pollution
Institution: University of Technology Sydney
Language: English
Subfield: Health, Toxicology and Mutagenesis
Field: Environmental Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
Estimated APC paid: $3,920
OpenAlex ID: W4403809050