Decontamination of Water Polluted with Phenol using Raphanus sativus Root

authors:

avatar Farzaneh Naghibi 1 , * , avatar Fereshteh Pourmorad 2 , avatar Soheila Honary 2 , avatar Maryam Shamsi 2

Department of Pharmacognosy, School of Pharmacy, Shaheed Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
Faculty of Pharmacy, Mazandaran Medical Sciences University, Sari, Iran

how to cite: Naghibi F, Pourmorad F, Honary S, Shamsi M. Decontamination of Water Polluted with Phenol using Raphanus sativus Root. Iran J Pharm Res. 2003;2(1):e127605. https://doi.org/10.22037/ijpr.2010.31.

Abstract

Plant materials have been found useful in decontamination of water polluted with phenolic compounds. The detoxification effect is due to peroxidases contained in plant tissue. Enzyme mediated oxidative coupling of phenol is followed by precipitation of the formed polymer and its removal from the aqueous phase. A synthetic wastewater buffered at pH = 7.4 containing 0.9 mM phenol was treated in this research with cut Raphanus sativus root and its juice. Cut Raphanus or Raphanus juice were added separately as enzyme source to phenol solution in buffer and in tap water in two series of experiments. The reaction was initiated by the addition of hydrogen peroxide. After three hours stirring the phenol content of the mixtures was determined. More than 90% of phenol was removed in both cases.