Accelerated decrease in surfactant concentration in the water of a microcosm in the presence of plants: innovations for phytotechnology

Lazareva E. V., Ostroumov S. A. Accelerated decrease in surfactant concentration in the water of a microcosm in the presence of plants: innovations for phytotechnology. - Doklady Biological Sciences, 2009, Vol. 425, pp. 180–182.
** http://www.scribd.com/doc/60795487; in Rus.: http://www.scribd.com/doc/61655262/;
** Tables. Bibliogr. 15 refs. [Pleiades Publishing, Ltd.; ISSN 0012-4966; Presented by Academician G.V. Dobrovol’sky September 26, 2008; DOI: 10.1134/S0012496609020276; original Russian text: E.V. Lazareva, S.A. Ostroumov, 2009, published in Doklady Akademii Nauk, 2009, Vol. 425, No. 6, pp. 843–845].
** It was discovered that plant biomass help towards restoration the water quality in the system which was polluted with a synthetic surfactant. Addition of sodium dodecylsulphate (SDS) to water rapidly changed the surface tension of water in the microcosm. The measurements demonstrated that the surface tension of water in the microcosm with the macrophyte OST1 restored to the level which was close to that of pure water within less than three days. As soon as after 46-h incubation of the system containing the plant phytomass, the surface tension increased significantly and reached that of distilled water. In the variants with water without plant phytomass, restoration of the normal surface tension was much longer (about 17 days). The results demonstrated an accelerated restoration of the normal surface tension which was typical of pure water in those systems that contained SDS in the presence of the phytomass of the macrophyte OST1. This is consistent with the conclusion that the macrophyte accelerates the disappearance of the surfactant from water.