A team of Philippine researchers discovered a new metal-eating plant species that feeds on nickel.
The plant is capable of storing more than 18,000 ppm of nickel in its leaves without the fear of poisoning itself. This amount is thousand times more than the amount of metal found in other plants.
The plant was discovered in the western part of Luzon Island in the Philippines, an area known for soils rich in heavy metals.
Dubbed Rinorea niccolifera, this plant has the ability to absorb the metal in high amounts, a process known as "nickel hyperaccumulation". What makes the discovery all the more interesting is the fact that only 0.5 - 1 percent of plant species that grow in nickel-rich soils have the ability to undergo this process. Only about 450 plant species worldwide possess this unusual trait.
"Hyperacccumulator plants have great potentials for the development of green technologies, for example, 'phytoremediation' and 'phytomining'," said Dr Augustine Doronila of the School of Chemistry, University of Melbourne, in a press statement.
Phytoremediation is a process where hyperacccumulator plants are used to remove heavy metals from contaminated soil. This process is very beneficial for the food industry as it prevents toxic metals from entering the food chain.
"One of the primary ways toxic heavy metals, such as cadmium, get in food is through plant uptake-the metal is taken up by the roots and deposited in edible portions," ARS plant physiologist Leon V. Kochian said in a press statement. "Contaminated soils and waters pose major environmental, agricultural, and human health problems worldwide. These problems may be partially solved by an emerging new technology-phytoremediation."
Phytomining refers to the production of "crop" of a metal through growing very high biomass plants, which accumulate high metal concentrations. In some plants, the property can be induced but most of them are natural hyper accumulators, like Rinorea niccolifera.
The Ni-hyperaccumulators "Alyssum bertolonii" from Italy and "Berkheya coddii" from South Africa have even greater potential to extract Ni, because of their high biomass and high Ni content.
The current project was funded by the Department of Science and Technology, Philippine Council for Industry, Energy, and Emerging Technology Research and Development. Findings were published in the open access journal PhytoKeys.
