Effect of Algal Cells on Water Pollution Control

The use of algae for remediation of toxic pollutants seems to be promising since they also provide some advantages such as the production of valuable products and their capability to capture CO₂ during the photosynthesis, which potentially decrease greenhouse gas emission. This paper reviews the evidence for highlighting the effectiveness of the use of living or non-living algal cells for treating polluted waters.

Removal efficiency and sorption capacity of algal non-living cells are higher than in living cells because of cell membrane disruption (leading to enhancement of intracellular pollutants binding) and the improvement of specific surface area. For the kinetic and isotherm modeling, there is no single powerful model for a wide range of pollutants and type of algae, indicating that the mechanism is quite specific depending on the type of algae, type of pollutants, and environmental conditions. The removal mechanism of pollutants by living and non-living algae can be considered as an exothermic reaction and physical sorption from many published reports.

The use of non-living cells was more effective compared to living cells for a wide range of pollutants since the non-living cells performed better removal efficiency and sorption capacity as well as easy to handle. This review is useful to pave a good strategy for designing a greener technology for future environmental pollutants remediation particularly within the domain of algal-based technology.