Employment of tea waste as biosorbent to mitigate metal toxicity to plants

Most of the environmental pollution studies were concerned mainly with water pollution. There are strong evidences of the progressive deterioration of water quality not only in India, but also all over the world. The polluted water contains various concentrations of heavy metal ions. That affected the living organisms. In the present study, the seedlings of Cajanus cajan (L.) Millspauk were treated with various concentration of textile dye effluent (20%, 40%, 50%, 60%, 80%) and antimony (III) chloride (5mM, 10mM, 15mM, 20mM, 25mM) individually. After 10 days of treatment the plants were analysed. The morphometric, pigmental, biochemical and enzymatic characteristics were decreased except proline, leaf nitrate and the activities of catalase and peroxidise with increasing the concentration of effluent and heavy metal. The declining trend was also noticed in the case of protein, soluble sugar, NR activity. But when the plants were applied with tea waste treated dye effluent and antimony the result was exactly opposite to what was noticed earlier, implying that biosorbent treatment caused the removal of pollutants, so, that the plants were recovered.