Doctor Domenico Morabito is developing alternative treatments to remediate soils polluted by metals and metalloids. This work can be summarized as follows (i) study of the capacities of plants associated to microorganisms and soil amendments to limit the spread of soil pollution to neighboring environmental compartments and (ii) production of sustainable wood biomass. He is also interested by studying the response mechanisms of Salicaceae exposed to soil pollution by studying the proteomic profiles changes of roots, leaf tissues and cambial cells when trees were cultivated on polluted soils. His research work is based on a multi-disciplinary approach, geochemical and biological (ecology, physiology and molecular biology) and by incorporating a partnership with different research team in France and Europe and several industrial companies and engineering firms involved in phytomanagement, recycling and waste recovery. Another important point of his work is to better understand how soil amendments such as biochar can reduce the phytoavailability of metal(loid)s and how metal(loid)s transfer from soil to the different plant organs and the associated insects. For this he has pilot demonstrators (field test) set upon industrial and mining site presenting poly-metallic pollutions mainly provided by lead and arsenic.
Looking forward to the meeting
Dr. Domenico Morabito (Université d'Orléans, France)