THE PCA OF PHYTOMINING: PRINCIPLES, CHALLENGES AND ADVANCES

Abstract

There is a number of commercially valuable elements whose concentration in the crust of the earth is too low for an economic mining with traditional approaches. However, phytotechnologies which take advantage of the capacity of certain plant species to take up these elements from the soil solution and accumulate them to large amounts in their biomass can be used for an economic winning of various metals and metalloids. This specific use of phytoextraction which has already been as one technology in the phytoremediation of contaminated sites is called “phytomining”.