Remediation Design

Plant, fungi, and microbial community release exudates that could accelerate the degradation of various types of contaminants including PFAS, asbestos fibers and microplastics in subsurface soil. We examine the mechanism of biodegradation of these pollutants in subsurface soils.

Bacterial and fungal siderophore exposure to asbestos fibers can lower toxicity of asbestos fibers in the contaminated subsurface soil.

We examine the dissolution of iron, which can increase toxicity of chrysotile asbestos mineral, by microbial and fungal siderophores and organic acids present in rhizosphere and show that the exudates have the potential to remove iron from asbestos even at high pH conditions, thereby rendering asbestos fiber less toxic.

Mohanty, S.K., Gonneau, C., Salamatipour, A., Pietrofesa, R.A., Christofidou-Solomidou, M., Casper, B., and Willenbring, J.K. (2018) Siderophore-mediated iron removal from chrysotile: Implications on asbestos toxicity reduction and bioremediation. Journal of Hazardous Materials. 341, 290-296. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhazmat.2017.07.033 [ pdf ]

Subsurface Processes

Colloid Transport

Soil microbiome