title: Heavy metal sorption by released polysaccharides and whole cultures of two exopolysaccharide-producing cyanobacteria.
abstract: The metal removal capacity of cultures of two capsulated, exopolysaccharide-producing cyanobacteria, Cyanospira capsulata and Nostoc PCC7936, were tested using copper (II) as the model metal. C. capsulata cultures removed the greatest amount of copper, with a maximum per unit of biomass (q(max)) of 115.0+/-5.1 mg copper g(-1) of protein, compared with 85.0+/-3.2 removed with Nostoc PCC7936 cultures. Water solutions of pure polysaccharides (RPSs) released into the culture medium by C. capsulata and Nostoc PCC7936 achieved q(max) values of 20.2+/-0.8 mg g(-1) copper per polysaccharide dry weight with C. capsulata RPS and 11.0+/-1.5 mg g(-1) with Nostoc PCC7936 RPS. Cultures of the two cyanobacteria also removed Zn (II) and Ni (II), in both single-metal systems and in multimetal systems with Cu; in the various single-metal systems more copper was removed than Zn or Ni, while in the multimetal systems a smaller amount of each individual metal was removed but the overall amount of all metal ions sorbed or the amount of copper sorbed in the copper-only system was almost the same with C. capsulata, and slightly higher with Nostoc PCC7936.
authors.affiliation: Department of Agricultural Biotechnology, University of Florence, Piazzale delle Cascine 24, I-50144, Florence, Italy. roberto.dephilippis@unifi.it
authors.forename: Roberto
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: De Philippis
authors.forename: Raffaella
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Paperi
authors.forename: Claudio
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Sili
mesh_terms: D000327:Adsorption; D000465:Algorithms; D000458:Cyanobacteria / Q000378:metabolism*; D007700:Kinetics; D019216:Metals, Heavy / Q000737:chemistry*; D046937:Nostoc / Q000378:metabolism; D011134:Polysaccharides / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000378:metabolism*; D013816:Thermodynamics
chemical_list: D019216:Metals, Heavy; D011134:Polysaccharides