Phytoremediation potentials of water Hyacinth. Eichhornia crassipes (mart.) Solms in crude oil polluted water

The pollution of crude oil contaminated water has been a major problem in oil producing communities and the use of plant to clean such water bodies has been on investigation. In order to identify plants that can enhance the remediation of crude oil contaminated water, the effect of the growth of Eichhornia crassipes on the physico - chemistry and crude oil content of water contaminated with different concentrations of crude oil was investigated in this study. The containers were filled with water and the treatments used were 0ml, 10ml, 20ml, 30ml and 40ml of crude oil respectively. The control 0ml had no crude oil in it. This was replicated four times to give an observation of twenty. The phytoremediating plant Eichhornia crassipes was introduced into the containers two weeks after pollution. Morphological parameters were taken and the physico-chemical analysis of all the water bodies such as Dissolved Oxygen (DO), Conductivity, Temperature, Total Dissolved Solid (TDS), Turbidity, Salinity, Total Petroleum Hydrocarbon (TPH) and pH were determined. Results from this study shows that Eichhornia crassipes is a phytoremediating plant.©JASEM