Nanominerals and Their Bearing on Metals Uptake by Plants (original) (raw)

In the frame of a project aiming at the identification of nanominerals, especially of gold and silver in the waste dumps, two area were selected for the study, i.e. Valea lui Stan ores in the Căpăţâna Mts. (AuCu-As) and Bădeanca Valley ores in the Leaota Mts. (Co-Ni-Bi-Ag-U). A combination of optical, chemical (AAS, ICP-AES) and structural methods (NGR, XRD, TEM/SAED) has been proved to be succesfull for such an attempt. New minerals have been identified in the two areas, i.e. uytenbogaardtite, greenockite, maghemite etc. (Valea lui Stan); lavendulan, maghemite, Mn-spinel, ferrihydrite etc. (Bădeanca Valley) not previously known, all of them being at nanometric scale. The presence of silver carbonates at nanometric scale is also worth of mentioning. At the beginning of the experimental uptake of metals by plants, metal-enriched neutral soils have been used. Zea mays and Trifolium repens seeds were separately planted in Au, U, Cu and As enriched soils (“artificial ores”). Except for ...