(117ar) Removal of Heavy Metals from Wastewater Using Dead Algae Cells

The presence of heavy metals in the systems of water supplies become a global issue faces the most developed and developing countries worldwide. These metals are extremely toxic, non-biodegradable, and once they enter the food chain, they have the ability to accumulate at low concentration in the living organisms in general and human bodies in specific. Under specific environmental conditions, heavy metals may be accumulated to toxic levels and cause many serious diseases such as kidney failures, nervous system damage, cancer, and it can be deadly at high concentrations. During the last years, many different treatment processes have been used in order to remove heavy metal from industrial wastewater. This includes chemical precipitation, cementation, ion exchange, and membrane filtration. However, these treatment processes have some limitations such as the production of a huge quantity of heavy metals rich sludge, high operation cost, and some processes inapplicable on large scales (Metcalf et al. 2003). On the other hand, adsorption as a removal process is widely used because of its low cost and it is applicable to large-scale applications. Furthermore, the adsorption process by using low-cost adsorbents (i.e. fungi, yeast, bacteria, and algae) provides many advantages over the conventional treatment methods to heavy metals removal from industrial wastewater. For instance, it has a high removal efficiency with cost-effectiveness. Moreover, the use of bioprocesses technologies minimizes the production of chemical/biological sludge which makes this process environmentally friendly (Abbas et al. 2014). Algal cultures are considered the most suitable adsorbent which is more cost-effective and require fewer limitations such as high pressures and temperatures. Furthermore, it is widely available all over the world. Hence, there is growing attention in testing the ability of different lgae species for heavy metals removal from industrial wastewater. Finding suitable operating conditions is very important to address the concerns of metal-contaminated wastewater. This paper aims to test the ability of non-living algae in removing Copper, Nickel, and Aluminum from industrial wastewater samples and compare the results with other conventional treatment processes. The performance of non-living algae (spirulina) in removing aluminum from industrial wastewater samples will be studied. Additionally, the optimal operating conditions (T, pH, contact time) will be determined.