Using microalgae Scenedesmus obliquus in the removal of chromium present in plating wastewaters

Abstract

Dumping wastewaters from plating industry with a high content in chromium is a potential hazard for people and environment. It is known that some metals, including the heavy metals, at low concentrations participate in different metabolic routes, but at high concentration are toxic for many living organisms. Some microorganism taking the heavy metals from the environment are capable of concentrating and accumulating large quantities of them in different citoplasmatic structures with no-toxic effects. Microalgae have affinity by the polyvalent metals making possible their use as depollutant agent in waters that contains dissolved metallic ions as alternative methods when others methods of recycle are unusable. In this report a chromium removal study from a plating wastewater, using scenedesmus obliquus culture was made. The removal efficiency of Cr (VI) was 12 % and Cr (III) was 27 % and for condition of algae's immobilization removal of Cr (III) was 95 %.