Bioremediation of heavy metals from water bodies

  • 5/1/17 10:00 AM

Bioremediation of heavy metals from water bodies

Heavy metal contamination in terrestrial and aquatic systems (urbanisation, industrialisation, mining) represents a growing environmental problem in municipal and industrial sewage, agricultural soils, mineral waters, rivers and the marine environment. An accumulation in the food chain (especially of Cu, Hg, Cd, Cr, Zn) has serious health consequences, which are contained by legal regulations (decontamination).

For neighbouring municipalities, decontamination requires financially sustainable methods, which is generally not achieved using conventional energy-, material- and cost-intensive processes, often without any possibility of cost-efficient in situ processing. Conventional heavy-metal-removal technologies, such as chemical precipitation, ion-exchange chromatography and electro-chemical procedures are often neither effective nor particularly economical, especially at low concentration ranges.

Using biomass as a sorption material may provide an environmentally friendly solution to the problem. For example, micro-algae are able to sorb large quantities of heavy metals within minutes and at low concentrations, and biomass can be produced in large quantities at low cost.

One of the filter modules currently being developed uses algae biomass, and aims to provide the effective and economical cleaning of watercourses and lakes polluted with heavy metals. The development work is currently ongoing at the Ostfalia University of Applied Sciences, Institute for Biotechnology and Environmental Research, in collaboration with companies from the region. The biomass – laden with heavy metals – does not require great expense to be disposed of, because the adsorbed heavy metals can be technically desorbed, and thus recovered. Decontaminated filters can then be used again for water purification.

 

Please contact Dr. agr. Hedda Sander for more information.

 

 

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