Phycoremediation of cyanide from coke–oven wastewater using cyanobacterial consortium

Abstract

Owing to the presence of several toxic pollutants such as cyanide, phenol, ammonium, coke–oven wastewater is being considered as hazardous stream and needs to be treated properly. In the present study, cyanobacterial consortium of Dinophysis acuminata and Dinophysis caudata, collected from East Kolkata Wetland, was used for the treatment of both synthetic cyanide solution and real coke–oven wastewater. The growth kinetics was studied considering nitrate as substrate. Since consortium showed growth in cyanide solution, a model was proposed considering both nitrate and cyanide as substrates. The simulated data match quite well with experimental ones. Two coke–oven wastewater samples were collected—untreated one from equalization tank and another from secondary clarifier effluent and treated with consortium separately. Lipid was extracted from biomass of native cyanobacterial consortium, biomass treated with raw coke–oven wastewater and biomass treated with secondary clarifier effluents. Fatty acid methyl ester of such lipid samples was analyzed using gas chromatograph.