Ecology, Environment and Conservation Paper

POTENTIAL OF ALGAE AS A BIOSORBENT FOR THE REMOVAL OF HEAVY METALS

Ahmad Ashfaq and Aatika Saadia

Abstract

The extent of uptake of the different metals with the tested algae under different conditions such as pH, time of algal residence in solution with the metal and concentration of algal biomass is considered by several researchers. Many algae have immense capability to sorb metals and there is considerable potential for using them to treat wastewaters. Dead cells sorb more metal than live cells. Algae can effectively remove metals from multi-metal solutions. Langmuir and Freundlich models are commonly used for fitting sorption data. For commercial application of algal technology to remove metal ions from wastewaters, emphasis should be given to selection of strains with high metal sorption capacity, adequate understanding of sorption mechanisms, development of low cost methods for cell immobilization, development of better models for predicting metal sorption and economic feasibility. This paper reviewed the art in the field of biosorption using algae as biomass.