| dc.description.abstract | Indiscriminate disposal of used lubricating
oil (ULO) into the soil has become one of the
major environmental issues in most of the cities
throughout the world. Phytoremediation is a
novel technique with a potential to be utilized
to remediate ULO contaminated soil. The aim
of the study was to investigate the applicability
of Allium cepa test to assess the degree of
phytoremediation of soil contaminated with ULO
by using Crotalaria retusa L. A pot experiment
was conducted by using ULO contaminated
soils with the contamination levels of 10,000
mg/kg (T1), 20,000 mg/kg (T2) and 30,000 mg/
kg (T3) w/w ULO according to the randomized
block design (RBD) with four replicates per each
contamination level. At the end of 90 days, A.
cepa system showed significantly high Mitotic
index (MI) for the treatments with plants (34.51,
23.34 and 20.30) compared to that of unplanted
control (27.77, 20.81 and 16.42) for T1, T2 and
T3 respectively. The percentage biodegradation
(43.75, 32.23 and 22.1) in the C. retusa rhizosphere
soil was significantly high compared to that of
unplanted control (25.15%, 16.4% and 9.15%)
for T1, T2 and T3 respectively. The results infer
that the phytoremediation and genotoxicity (MI
and chromosomal aberrations) reduction in the
treatment with C. retusa varied in time-dependent
and contamination-level-dependent manner.
The correlation analysis revealed highly positive
correlations (r=0.882, 0.970 and 0.961) between
percentage ULO biodegradation and MI for 30,
60 and 90 days respectively. Therefore, overall
results conclude the potential application of
A. cepa test to evaluate phytoremediation of soil
contaminated with ULO by using C. retusa L. | en_US |
