Microalgae: a potential tool for remediating aquatic environments from toxic metals

Abstract

In the last few years, due to vigorous expansion of industrialization, toxic metals appear to be in excessive levels in the environment. Ecosystems are now severely threatened by such widespread pollutants. Current reviews show that technologies that are used to remediate infected areas appear to have low efficiency, and this has brought on the need for further investigation. Among biological and non-biological methods which have been proposed for removing such pollutants from the environment, phycoremediation seems to be advantageous. Until recently, many microorganisms (such as fungi, bacteria and waste biomass) have been studied for their ability to remove toxic metals from the aqueous environment. In this review, it is shown that in particular, microalgae have received great attention lately, because of their ability to bind essential quantities of these pollutants. Phycoremediation involves the process of biosorption and bioaccumulation, both of which take part in the metal sequestration. A detailed description of either mechanism with respect to the parameters affecting them is reviewed in this work.