Accumulation of arsenic(III) by Chlorella vulgaris

Arsenic occurs naturally in the environment and also through agricultural a nd industrial pollution. Since arsenic species show different toxicities, i t is important to be able to separate them. Methods using microorganisms ar e being applied increasingly to remove metal ions and different metal speci es from aqueous solutions. Accumulation of As(III) by Chlorella vulgaris al gae was studied, including various factors that influence on accumulation c apacity, e.g. pretreatment of the algae (live, dry and lyophilized algae), temperature (4, 22, 37 and 100 degrees C), pH and exposure time of the alga e to arsenic solutions. The pH appears to be the most critical factor, prob ably due to the species presenting different charges with pH variation. For arsenic species determination, hydride generation atomic absorption spectr ometry (HG-AAS) was employed. Copyright (C) 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.