ИСТИНА

Pharmaceuticals including antibiotics are among hazardous micropollutants (HMP) of the environment. Incomplete degradation of the HMP leads to their persistence in water bodies causing a plethora of deleterious effects. Conventional wastewater treatment cannot remove HMP completely, and a promising alternative is comprised by biotechnologies based on microalgae (MA)[1]. The use of immobilized MA in environmental biotechnology is advantageous since immobilized cultures allow recycling of the MA cells, support higher cell densities, and boost tolerance of MA to stresses including HMP. The immobilized MA often outperform their freely suspended counterparts in biomass accumulation, biodestruction of pollutants and nutrient removal. We tested chitosan-based polycationic polymeric materials obtained by cryopolymerization of chitosan with glutaraldehyde which possess a high immobilization efficiency and supported the prolonged cultivation of immobilized MA without impairing their growth and photosynthetic activity. Here we report on a comparative study of HMP (exemplified by the antibiotic ceftriaxone) and nutrient removal by suspended and chitosan-immobilized cells of Lobosphaera sp. IPPAS C-2047 unialgal culture.