Clean-up Method Uses Aquatic Plants to Break Down Military Explosives

The South and Southwest HSRC has been successful in advancing the use of aquatic plants in the clean-up of explosives in groundwater and soils. Aquatic plants have been engineered to assimilate trinitrotoluene (TNT) into plant mass at a cost well below other current and emerging technologies. Research conducted in the center has advanced the technology to the field environment at several locations in Tennessee, Alabama, Oklahoma, and Iowa with potential savings of more than $20 million per site.

Phytoremediation technologies (as the use of vegetation for environmental clean-up is called) out-compete incineration and advanced oxidation processes as environmentally conscious treatment alternatives. Phytoremediation has demonstrated exceptional potential for long-term in-situ treatment of explosives and has the potential for annual nationwide savings of $400 million at Department of Defense sites.

For further information, contact:
Dr. Joseph Hughes
Chair and Associate Professor
Department of Environmental Science and Engineering
Rice University
Houston, TX 77251
Telephone: 713/348-5903
E-mail: hughes@rice.edu