Heavy metal ferns clean up

CHINESE BOFFINS have modified a plant to suck toxins out of the soil.

The Chinese brake fern is being used to absorb heavy metals such as arsenic from contaminated soil near factories and mines, which is ferntastic news for a country with 280,000 mines and one environmental inspector.

Chen Tongbin, principal investigator at the Centre for Environmental Remediation of the Chinese Academy of Sciences Institute of Geographical Sciences and Natural Resources Research, and his team have improved the Pteris vittata fern, enabling it to clean up the environment.

"The work we've done in Guangxi, Hunan, Yunnan, Zhejiang and Guangdong is quite impressive," Chen said in a telefern interview.

Chen discovered that the Chinese brake fern had a predilection for extracting arsenic and other heavy metals from soil, to the extent of making polluted areas suitable for re-use.

If that were not enough, the team reckons the arsenic can be extracted from the plants and be used to poison again. µ

L'Inq
Xinhua News Agency