Bioremediation of Industrial Effluent using Cyanobacterial Species: Phormidium mucicola and Anabaena aequalis

Different Industries discharge effluent in different water bodies, which is the only reason of pollution. The main objective of the present study was to investigate the biodegradation and biosorption capacity of some potential cyanobacterial species; Phormidium mucicola and Anabaena aequalis in Textile and Pharmaceutical industries, Mandideep, Bhopal Madhya Pradesh, India. Industrial effluents are contaminated with heavy metal. The effluents were subjected to biological treatment using axenic cyanobacterial strains as batch system for 7 days. Removal efficiencies of the different contaminants were evaluated and compared. Results confirmed the high efficiencies of the investigated species for the removal of the target contaminants which were species and contaminant-dependent. BOD and COD recorded 91.18 and 82.54% as maximum removal efficiencies achieved by Anabaena aequalis. The highest removal efficiencies of the total suspended solids recorded 53.23% achieved by Phormidium mucicola, while 41.61% was recorded as the highest TDS. Concerning the contaminant metals, Phormidium mucicola showed the highest biosorption capacity where 86.12 and 94.63% removal efficiencies were achieved for Zn and Cu, respectively. In conclusion, results of the study confirmed the advantageous potential of using the tested cyanobacterial species for the bioremediation of industrial effluent and clearly showed the quality improvement of the discharged effluent which in turn will eliminate or at least minimize the expected deterioration of the receiving environment.