Phycoremediation of ¹³⁷Cs and ⁶⁰Co by microalgae Dunaliella salina and Chlorella vulgaris

With increasing requirements for environmental protection, remediation techniques in the form of bioremediation are increasingly coming to the fore. In our work, we deal with the phycoremediation of cobalt and cesium isotopes using microalgae Dunaliella salina and Chlorella vulgaris, which are interesting not only from a commercial point of view, but also due to their sorption properties. Dunaliella salina has commercial uses for its high source of beta carotene and glycerol, which has implications for biofuels research. Chlorella vulgaris contains the largest source of chlorophyll of all plants, which makes it useful in commercial spheres such as a nutritional supplement. The advantage of using microalgae over higher plants for the decontamination of aqueous solutions lies in their simple cultivation, rapid growth, easy handling and the possibility of working in laboratory conditions. In this work, we focused on determining the time dependence of the decline in the activity of contaminated solutions for both microalgae in environments with different pH values. Based on the results, we determined that Dunaliella salina has the best phycoremediation properties at pH 3 and 8, and Chlorella vulgaris at pH 6. (author)