Simultaneous scavenging of Cr(VI) from soil and facilitation of nutrient uptake in plant using a mixture of carbon microfibers and nanofibers.

Plant growth and yield are adversely affected by the uptake of toxic hexavalent chromium (Cr(VI)) from soil. The present study describes a facile technique to minimize the uptake of Cr(VI) by chickpea (Cicer arietinum) plant from soil using microporous activated carbon microfiber (ACF). Simultaneously, nano-sized carbon nanofibers (CNFs), grown over the ACF substrate, are used as an efficient carrier of the Cu micronutrient from soil to root, shoot and leaf of the plants. Adsorption, seed germination and plant growth experiments are performed in Cr-stressed medium. The ACF, used as the adsorbent for Cr(VI) in metal-stressed soil (100 mg Cr kg-1 of soil) shows the metal loading of ∼23 mg g-1. Cr(VI) up to 50 mg L-1 concentration causes no stress during germination of chickpea seeds in Murashige and Skoog (MS) medium. A dose of 500 mg-mixture (treatment) per kg-soil increases root and shoot lengths by 52 and 11%, respectively than the control, during plant growth in the metal-stressed soil, attributed to an effective translocation of Cu-CNF through plant cells. Whereas Cr uptake by plant decrease to ∼46%, Cu uptake increase up to ∼120% in comparison to control by the mixture treatment. Protein and chlorophyll contents also significantly increased (*p < 0.05) with the application of treatment. The data clearly show that the mixture of ACF and Cu-CNF can be successfully used for the simultaneous scavenging of Cr(VI) from soil by adsorption over ACF and increased uptake of Cu by plants using the CNFs as the micronutrient carrier.