Toxicity of cadmium and its removal by marine microalgae, Chlorella sp.

Abstract

The toxicity of cadmium on marme microalgae, Chlorella sp. and also the ability of Chiarella sp. to remove cadmium from the culture solution were studied. The experiment was carried out using batch culture technique in modified f/2 medium. The result showed that Chlorella sp. has relatively high tolerance towards the toxicity of cadmium, the 96hr IC5o obtained was 6mg/L. On the other hand, the removal of Chforella sp. were consider as ineffective, although the Chlorella sp. cells showed significant uptake of cadmium, this may due to the low initial concentration in the cadmium spiked culture solution. From the morphology study, the cells that were exposed to the cadmium showed certain abnormalities compared to the normal cells, this may due to the disruption of physiological process of the cell by cadmium.