Advances in the Interfacial Processes and Self-remediation of Persistent Organic Pollutants in Soil-plant Systems: An Example of Polychlorinated Biphenyls

The soil-plant system is a very important subsystem in the earth surface ecosystem,playing a key role in ensuring food security and human health.Polychlorinated biphenyls(PCBs) are one of the priority persistent organic pollutants(POPs) in soil environment.The interactions among soil colloids,microbes and plants change physio-chemical and biological processes of PCBs in soil-plant system,result in either decrease of pollutant bioavailability and toxicity or enhanced degradation,then reduce the risk in food chain through pollutant bio-transfer,and lead to decontamination and self-remediation eventually under natural environment.This paper presents an overview on advances in the interfacial processes of polychlorinated biphenyls in soil-microbe-plant systems,and put forward a theoretical principle of self-remediation of POPs contaminated soil.