Chapter 5

PAHs in Terrestrial

Environment and their

Phytoremediation

Sandip Singh Bhatti,¹ Astha Bhatia,² Gulshan Bhagat,²

Simran Singh,² Salwinder Singh Dhaliwal,³

Vivek Sharma,³ Vibha Verma,³ Rui Yin⁴ and

Jaswinder Singh^5,*

5.1 Introduction

Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs) are organic compounds that are present everywhere in

one’s surroundings. PAHs have high melting and boiling points which facilitates them to remain solid

at room temperature. Other properties of PAHs include low vapor pressure and very low aqueous

solubility which decrease with an increase in molecular weight. The increase in the molecular weight

of PAHs is also related to their resistance towards oxidation and reduction processes. According to

IUPAC (International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry), phenanthrene and anthracene are the

simplest PAHs (Rengarajan et al. 2015).

5.2 What are PAHs?

Polycyclic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are persistent and widely spread organic pollutants that are found

in soil, sludge, water and air. Chemically these contain multiple aromatic (benzene) rings. They

are both naturally occurring and man-made. These are formed by the partial combustion of carbon

source materials like forest fires, volcanic eruptions (natural), fossil fuels, petroleum refining and

other anthropogenic activities. Due to anthropogenic factors, PAHs are released into aquatic systems,

deposited in surface water, soils, sediments and air (Honda and Suzuki 2020, Phan Thi et al. 2020).

1 Department of Chemistry, Lovely Professional University, Phagwara, 144001-India.

Email: singh.sandip87@gmail.com, sandip.28707@lpu.co.in

2 Department of Botanical and Environmental Sciences, Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar, 143005-India.

3 Department of Soil Science, Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana, Punjab, 141004, India.

4 Institute of Ecology, College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, and Key Laboratory for Earth Surface Processes of the

Ministry of Education, Peking University, 100871, Beijing, China.

5 Department of Zoology, Khalsa College, Amritsar, 143005-India.

* Corresponding author: singhjassi75@yahoo.co.in