Remoción de metales pesados (cromo, zinc, aluminio, arsénico, níquel y cobre) en aguas industriales utilizando algas coinmovilizadas con alginato de sodio

Abstract

Microalgae play an important role in bioremediation. Bioremediation is responsible for removing contaminants from water, soil or air using live microorganisms. The use of microalgae has now become relevant due to its low cost of implementation. So a branch of research has been opened in this field, in order to make these processes more applicable. That is, to go from a laboratory scale to a mass production scale. In this titration work, the elimination of heavy metals in industrial wastewater is proposed using the microalgae species Chlorella co-immobilized in sodium alginate. This species of algae has shown in different studies a high degree of effectiveness at the time of eliminating pollutants from effluents. For this, the microalgae culture is carried out in the Sanitary laboratory of the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Cuenca, to determine its growth kinetics. At the height of the cultivation, the algae will be co-immobilized and put in contact with different solutions of heavy metals and with industrial wastewater. Finally, the removal percentage is determined for the different tests, thus determining the influence of heavy metal concentrations. The results obtained show that, indeed, the Chlorella algae species is a viable solution for the treatment of water contaminated with heavy metals. Removal percentages between 70% and 97% were obtained for the different tests with synthetic solutions, while for the tests with industrial wastewater the removal percentages ranged between 30% and 85%