Study on transportation and accumulation mechanisms of cesium in Camellia sinensis by SR-XRF imaging

After the tragedy in Fukushima, soil and food pollution by radionuclides has become a serious problem. Cs can be uptaken by many plants due to its chemical similarities with K. So, removal of radioactive Cs from the soils can be carried out using the phytoremediation technology. However, the development of phytoremediation techniques require the knowledge on the interactions between the plants and soils. Although the competitive relation between K and Cs to enter the plant is known, few works were dedicated to the visual localization of Cs in the plant and its relation to potassium. In this study, we have used synchrotron radiation X-ray fluorescence (SR-XRF) imaging in order to reveal accumulation of Cs with a cellular spatial resolution. The Cs Lβ intensity measured in the XRF imaging were transformed into the Cs concentration based on the calibration curves prepared using in house standard samples of known Cs concentrations. It is remarkable that after exposure to 10 ppm Cs solution for 4 weeks Camellia sinensis accumulated Cs up to 300 ppm (expressed in dry weight) in the body. XRF imaging of the root show that Cs was located mainly at the epidermis. On the other hand, K was located mainly at endodermis and the cell wall. A correlation coefficient(R) between XRF intensity of K and that of Cs in the root was about R=0.5. This suggest that Cs is hardly absorbed from roots of Camellia sinensis compared with K, due to its large ionic radius. In the case of stem, distribution of Cs was similar to that of K. They were located at the exodermis, epidermis and the cell wall. Their correlation coefficient was about R=0.8. These results suggest that Cs was transported through the same pathway as that of K in the stem. (author)