
Liz Rylott and Neil Bruce (York), Sharon Doty and Stuart Strand (Univ. of Washington), Antonio Palazzo (US Army, USA CRREL) The toxic explosive hexahydro-1,3,5-trinitro-1,3,5-triazine (RDX) is both resistant to degradation and highly mobile through soils and ground water and, as a result of this, RDX is now a significant threat to drinking sources such as those close to the US Massachusetts Military. We have demonstrated that Arabidopsis expressing bacterial RDX degrading enzymes remove and degrade saturating concentrations of RDX from soil leachate. We are currently transferring this technology into selected perennial wheatgrass species for the phytoremediation of RDX from soil leachate.
Contaminant categories: Explosives