Algal Bioremediatoin of Berkeley Pit Water, Phase III
Principal Investigator: Dr. Grant Mitman
gmitman@mtech.edu
Previous bioremediation studies on the Berkeley Pit have demonstrated
the sorption/precipitation potential of four species of algae to
remove metal ions from Berkeley Pit water (MWTP Activity IV, Project
10, MWTP Activity IV, Project 16, and MWTP Activity IV, Project
20 ). However, the populations of algae were not axenic (pure) and
were associated with populations of bacteria. This study evaluated
the role that bacteria associated with the algal populations has
in the adsorption/absorption of heavy metals from Berkeley Pit water
Nearly pure populations of two algal species, Chromulina freiburgensis
Dofl. and Chlamydomonas acidophila Negoro, were obtained and investigated,
along with cultures of algae and bacteria that naturally occur together.
Based on the data collected within this experiment, it appears that
when Berkeley Pit water was inoculated with Chlamydomonas acidophila,
a higher amount of metals was found in the filter fraction than
with Chromulina freiburgensis. As such, it would appear that Chlamydomonas
acidophila would be a better remediator than Chromulina freiburgensis
for most of the metals analyzed in this experiment. Probability
values resulting from the statistical analysis showed that the bacteria
factor has a significant effect on the concentration of most metals
in the filtrate fraction but only for copper, iron, and magnesium
for the filter fraction. Thus, these results appear to reveal that
a mixed algae and bacteria culture added to Berkeley Pit filtered
water can adsorb/absorb more metals than a culture of algae that
does not contain bacteria.
MWTP Activity IV, Project 24
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