Clístenes Williams Araújo do Nascimento é professor da UFRPE e membro da Academia Pernambucana de Ciências
Imagine a world where the solution to cleaning a soil contaminated with heavy metals such as lead, nickel and cadmium was in nature itself. This world exists, thanks to plants with a superpower: they “eat” metals. These are the so -called hyperacumulating, which store metals in such large quantities that they can be used to clean polluted areas and even mine metals in a more sustainable way. Unlike most plants, which would die while trying to absorb so high amounts of toxic metals, hyperacuumulators can process these elements without damage. This is because they developed mechanisms to isolate these metals in specific cell compartments, avoiding problems in their metabolism. Metal hyperacumulation occurs mainly in plants of regions with metal -rich soils known as ultramaphic soils. Brazil, a country where mining has a worldwide prominence, has a lot of areas, for example, in Goiás, Pará, Bahia, where “metal eating” plants have adapted and evolved to tolerate – and even depend on – of these metals to survive. On a planet where urban and industrial growth contaminates the soil, the importance of these plants is immense. Soil contamination is a serious problem: many metals are toxic, they can pollute soils, groundwater and pose a risk to human health and the environment. Removing these metals from the soil is difficult and expensive. Hyperacumulative can help solve the problem in an economical and sustainable way. In addition, they offer a promising alternative to traditional metal mining. Agrominera, an area of study of our research group at UFRPE, is the process of cultivating these plants to extract soil metals, reducing the environmental impact of conventional mining. After cultivation, the leaves rich in metals are harvested and processed to extract the metal, contributing to a more ecological mining. Between plants Better known hyperacumulative are those that accumulate nickel, a metal used in the manufacture of batteries, metal alloys and stainless steel. Brazil has one of the largest biodiversity in the world, including various endemic species that may have potential for metal hyperacumulation. Brazilian researchers have been increasingly interested in this area, with studies focused both in the identification of native species with high accumulation potential and in the development of methods to make the process more efficient. The country can also benefit economically with hyperacumulative plants, which represent a silent revolution in the fight against pollution and the search for more green mining methods. The potential of these plants to transform contaminated areas into fertile soils and to reduce the environmental impact of mining is immense. In Brazil, exploiting this technology can become an effective solution to environmental problems. Nature, once again, can be our ally in building a cleaner and sustainable future.
Article Originally published on the UOL website
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