Plants act as a natural filter to the environment removing not only nutrient but also toxins from its surroundings.  Using these natural filters for water purification is growing popularity to remove heavy metals and other chemicals from sewage plants as an effective alternative to current expensive and complicated methods of purification and decontamination.  In today's society, heavy metals are used in many commercial applications in both ion and nanoparticle forms.  Silver is a popular heavy metal for consumer applications in the medical field as well as household appliances.  Both silver ions and nanoparticles exhibit strong antibacterial and antimicrobial properties that in high concentrations prove to be detrimental to most organisms. With increasing usage, these silver forms will lose adhesion to the product and escape into the environment.In this research, Pistia stratiotes, an invasive freshwater plant, is analyzed for its ability to remove various concentrations of silver ions and silver nanoparticles from water.  These plants interact for forty-eight hours with various concentrations of silver forms to identify the removal of the silver from the media as well as the health and interactions of the plants.  Using various analytical techniques to identify the silver form, concentration, interactions and location with the plant and water it is possible to understand the application of plants for water purification.  The instrumentation used to accomplish this research are Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry, Ultraviolet and Visible Spectroscopy, Dynamic Light Scattering, and Liquid Chromatography.

Removal of silver ion and nanoparticles for water purification utilizing <i>Pistia</i> <i>stratiotes</i>

246th National Meeting (2013)

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Removal of silver ion and nanoparticles for water purification utilizing Pistia stratiotes