Optimized treatment of wastewater containing cytotoxic drugs by living and dead biomass of the freshwater microalga, Chlorella vulgaris

• Published in: Ecological engineering 2018-02, Vol.111, p.85-93
• Main Authors: Habibzadeh, Mehrnaz, Chaibakhsh, Naz, Naeemi, Akram Sadat
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Adsorption; Aquatic environment; Bacteria; Biomass; Bioremediation; Biosorption; Capacity; Chlorella vulgaris; Cytotoxic agents; Cytotoxic drug; Cytotoxicity; Drugs; Ecosystem assessment; Ecosystems; Effluents; Environmental effects; Flutamide; Freshwater; Inland water environment; Optimization; pH effects; Removal; Response surface methodology; Wastewater; Wastewater treatment; Water treatment
• ISSN: 0925-8574; 1872-6992
• DOI: 10.1016/j.ecoleng.2017.12.001

[Display omitted] •Living and dead biomass of C. vulgaris is able to remove Flutamide from wastewater.•Maximum sorption capacity of living microalga was higher than the dead biomass.•Living biomass of C. vulgaris can eliminate 98.5% of FLU at neutral pH and 10min.•FLU biosorption on the microalga followed the modified Freundlich kinetic model.•Elimination of FLU by C. vulgaris is a physical sorption process. The presence of recalcitrant cytotoxic drugs in aquatic environments pose significant harmful effects to the ecosystems and human health. Due to the problems associated with physicochemical methods in treatment of effluents containing cytotoxic agents, the present study aimed to evaluate the efficiency of microalgae in bioremediation of these compounds. Biosorption of the anticancer drug, Flutamide (FLU), was performed by living and dead biomass of Chlorella vulgaris. The living microalga showed a better performance in the drug removal considering the amount of biomass, pH and time of adsorption. A nonlinear regression approach revealed that the Freundlich and Langmuir isotherms could fit well to the adsorption data. Maximum sorption capacity of the living microalga (26.8mgg−1) was higher than the dead biomass (12.5mgg−1). Kinetic studies showed that adsorption process by living and dead microalga followed the modified Freundlich model. Optimization of the process by response surface methodology (RSM) indicated that at FLU concentration of 50μM, pH 7.4 and 10min, 98.5% drug removal could be obtained by the living biomass. The results indicate that the use of microalga can be a promising technology for the treatment of wastewaters containing cytotoxic compounds.