The aim of the study was to compare the effects of stress (contamination trials) on the microorganisms in zinc-polluted soil (5,018 mg Zn kg(-1) soil dry weight) and unpolluted soil (141 mg Zn kg(-1) soil dw), measured as soil respiration rate. In the laboratory, soils were subjected to copper contamination (0, 500, 1,500 and 4,500 mg kg(-1) soil dw), and then a bactericide (oxytetracycline) co...

Poly(hexano-6-lactone) (PCL2) ®bers were degraded under environmental conditions, including soil burial, seawater exposure, and activated sludge exposure. The extent of degradation was examined by weight loss, loss of mechanical properties, such a tensile strength and ultimate elongation decreases, and visual observations by scanning electron microscopy. The rate of degradation was found to dep...

One of the most important anthropogenic pollution types in countries with oil production is soil and water contamination by petroleum. Phytoremediation is an emerging green technology for cleaning up polluted soil. A greenhouse experiment was conducted to study the effect of oil-contaminated soil on Echinacea purpurea with four concentrations of crude oil - contaminated soil: control = 0, 0.5% ...

Phytoremediation is a promising technology to remediate carcass burial sites where deep soil layers are contaminated with nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P) and other potential contaminants by leachate. The current study was conducted to examine the remedial efficiency of two different woody plants, poplar (Populus euramericana) and willow (Salix alba), by employing the deep-planting technique for th...

Using two biological characteristics of the land snail (subspecies Helix aspersa aspersa and Helix aspersa maxima), i.e., soil eating and crawling on wet surfaces, methods were developed to assess the bioavailability of heavy metals (Cd, Cr, Pb, and Zn) from soil and aqueous leachates of soil. Measurement of heavy-metal concentrations in soil, leachates, and soft tissues of snails showed that c...

Phytoremediation is one of the most widely used methods for removing soil contaminants. In this research, the function of Vetiveria zizianoides to remove cadmium from four different treatments with varying amounts of cadmium chloride contamination (including 0, 20, 40, and 60 mg per liter) was investigated and physiological changes caused by the accumulation of this metal in the plant were moni...

Visceral and cutaneous larva migrans are parasitic zoonoses caused by the infection of larval nematodes Toxocara sp. and Ancylostoma sp. respectively. The objective of this study was to investigate the contamination by Toxocara sp. eggs and Ancylostoma sp. eggs and larva of soil samples collected from public parks and children's playground areas in state of Minas Gerais, Brazil, using both Baer...