Growth Behavior and Physiological Characteristics of Chlorella Vulgaris in the Presence of Deicing Salt

Abstract

The negative effect of deicing salt on surface water have been reported by a number of studies, but there is a lack of knowledge about the effects of deicing salt on the growth behavior and the change of biochemical composition of algal Chlorella vulgaris (C. vulgaris). Algal were cultured at different concentration of deicing salt, algal cell densities, chlorophyll (a), protein and polysaccharides contents were measured. The results of this work showed that deicing salt had statistically significant inhibitory effects (P<0.01) on the cell growth of algae, and the best-fit predictive equation of algal cell densities (Dalgal, algal cells m/l) versus concentration of deicing salt (Csalt, g/l) after 7- day culture in this experiment was presented as a quadratic equation with Csalt being the independent variable and Dalgal being the dependent variable (R2=0.944, P<0.01). The contents of chlorophyll (a) in C. vulgaris cell exposed to different concentrations of deicing salt suggested that the chlorophyll (a) content significantly decreased (P<0.05) with the concentration of deicing salt higher than 4 g/l. Deicing salts also caused the trend of proteins contents decrease in C. vulgaris cells, and significantly increased (P<0.05) the contents of polysaccharides in algae cell at 2 g/l deicing salt, however, the change of that was not significantly affected at deicing salt concentrations higher than 2 g/l.