Contaminated soils and water by heavy metals have posed a serious threat to environment and human health, which can be solved by both physicochemical and biological methods. Phytoremediation has recently become a topic of scientific research and gained much attention as a cost-effective and eco-friendly alternative. Many kinds of hyperaccumulator plants have been applied to deal with heavy metal contaminants such as As, Cd, Pb, Zn and various radionuclides. In recent study, a seedling vigor index (SVI) model, which uses specific hyperaccumulator plants (i.e., sunflower) as test subjects, is proposed to predict the phytotoxicity of heavy metals. However, whether this mathematical model can be commonly used has not been cleared yet. In this study, rapeseeds were treated with Cd, Pb, Ni, Zn to validate the SVI model which was proposed by some scholars previously. The phytotoxicity of heavy metal was evaluated using seed germination test and seedling length measurement. The test shows that germination percentage and seedling length decreased when heavy metal concentration increased. According to the results of regression analysis, heavy metal concentration is linear to germination percentage, root and shoot length, corresponding with SVI model. It can be concluded that the SVI estimation model obtained from sunflowers can also be applied to rapeseeds to describe the relative effects of heavy metal concentration on plants growth and development.. However, further experiments using more hyperaccumulator plants to validate the applicability of the SVI model are necessary.

• Xiaohui Liu(Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, College of Engineering, Seoul National University)
• Xin Zhao(Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, College of Engineering, Seoul National University)
• Jae Young Kim(Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, College of Engineering, Seoul National University)