LITERATURE REVIEW: THE ROLE OF EARTHWORMS IN BIOREMEDIATION OF TREATED WOOD

Year 2022, Volume: 4 Issue: 1, 16 - 31, 30.06.2022

Abdul-rafiq Mohammed Suleyman Kuştaş Turan Yuksek

Abstract

In testing for the efficacy of earthworm's capability to remove heavy metals from wood protected with chromium, copper, and arsenate (CCA) chemical wood preservative, California red worm Eisenia fetida was exposed to a substrate made from a mixture of cow dung and wood sawdust made from yellow pine CCA-treated utility pole. The period of exposure of the experiment spanned twelve weeks. The study was done to ascertain whether earthworms bioremediating the substrate into their tissue would have any effect on their reproduction and total biomass development. As the new bioremediation methodology of using earthworm species to remove heavy metals from a medium in ecotoxicology study was also utilised to determine the number of heavy metals Eisenia fetida could extract from the mixture of cow dung and CCA-treated wood sawdust.
At the end of the study, the calculation of bioaccumulation factor (BAF) values for chromium, copper, and arsenic revealed arsenic to have been significantly bioaccumulated in earthworm tissue than chromium and copper.

Keywords

Bioaccumulation Factor (BAF), Bioremediation, CCA-treated wood, Ecotoxicology, Eisenia fetida

Supporting Institution

The Office for Coordinating Scientific Research Projects at Karadeniz Technical University.

Project Number

Project No: FYL-2018-7001

Thanks

The authors are grateful to the office for coordinating scientific research projects at Karadeniz Technical University for providing funds for this project work.

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