Leo Yin

BBSRC-funded Ph.D. Student (EASTBIO)

Project title:

Unfolding the potential of alpine pennycress for nickel agromining

My research project will assess the nickel uptake ability of different alpine pennycress ecotypes (a plant that uptakes and hyperaccumulates an extraordinary amount of metals like zinc, cadmium and nickel) and determine the effect of microbial inoculation, biochar, phytohormones, and low molecular weight organic acids in the overall agromining process. Agromining (or phytomining) is a plant-based technique to retrieve valuable elements from metal-enriched soils. Also, this research project will provide valuable knowledge about mechanisms that can be useful to improve phytoremediation.