Plant physiology processes associated with the application of phytotechnologies in the removal of hydrocarbons

Since the initiation of the industrial age with its parallel reliance on the utilisation of the hydrocarbon reserves on earth, the biosphere has been increasingly exposed to an ever expanding chemical variety of anthropogenic origin. Phytoremediation is an environmental technology for the cleaning of polluted soils using plants that needs the knowledge about transport and fate of pollutants for the best clean-up strategy, this knowledge consists in understanding the physiological processes inside plants. Some of these biological processes that can contribute to the containment and/or remediation of contaminants and the mechanisms in phytoremediation are described in this manuscript.