COMPARATIVE-STUDIES OF THE HEAVY-METAL UPTAKE OF WHOLE CELLS AND DIFFERENT TYPES OF CELL-WALLS FROM CHLORELLA-FUSCA

Short-term uptake of cadmium, copper and lead by whole cells, mother c ell walls (mcw) and cell walls from cell homogenates (hcw) of Chlorell a fusca were similar for all biosorbents: Adsorption equilibrium was r eached five minutes after metal addition. Analogous, over 90% of the r eadily adsorbed metal ions could be desorbed by a 1 minute EDTA treatm ent. In all cases, short-term or long-term uptake and single ion solut ion or metal mixtures, whole cells showed the highest metal accumulati on while hcw adsorbed more metal ions than mcw. The role of the cell w all for metal ion adsorption is discussed.