Abstract
Cyanobacteria have tremendous applications in areas such as production of biofuels and pharmaceutically important pigments and are used as an adsorbent for the removal of toxic metabolites. However, large scale production of Cyanobacteria is not economically feasible due to high cost involved in separation of biomass. In this context, different attachment systems have been developed for the growth of Cyanobacteria on a solid support. In this study, a simple and economical attachment system using polystyrene foam for growth of Cyanobacteria has been presented. Results clearly indicate that high biomass yield can be obtained in attached system when compared to suspended system. In attachment system, the biomass yield showed 21.4%, total protein content showed 29.2%, chlorophyll content showed 11.1%, and carotenoid content showed 13.1% increase as compared to the suspended system. The attachment system can also support the growth of Cyanobacteria in presence of copper mine waste water with concomitant removal of copper ions. These results were corroborated by COD analysis, which indicated significant reduction. Further, copper removal was high in attached system as compared to suspended system. It appears that attachment system offers protection for growing Cyanobacteria and can be effectively employed for growing Cyanobacteria in presence of waste water coming from different sources.
Highlights
Copper is considered as a persistent and ubiquitous environmental pollutant, which enters into the environment through anthropogenic and industrial activities [1, 2]
We have developed a simple and inexpensive attachment system for growth and harvesting of Cyanobacteria which can be employed for large scale culturing of Cyanobacteria in areas where sufficient infrastructure is not available
Cyanobacterial biomass containing copper can be used for recovery of copper generating a value added product
Summary
Copper is considered as a persistent and ubiquitous environmental pollutant, which enters into the environment through anthropogenic and industrial activities [1, 2]. Efficient treatment of copper containing waste water is necessary for reducing its toxicity in living systems [4]. In this regard, many treatment processes have been developed which rely on physical phenomena such as adsorption, electrodialysis, and precipitation [5, 6]. Many treatment processes have been developed which rely on physical phenomena such as adsorption, electrodialysis, and precipitation [5, 6] These methods have been shown to be expensive and time consuming. Biological removal of metal ions using microorganisms has been considered as a cheap and ecofriendly alternative [7, 8]. Studies have shown that exopolysaccharides synthesized by Cyanobacteria act as biological ion-exchange materials [9] and can bind and remove metal ions [8, 10,11,12]
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