| Abstract: | Arsenic occurs naturally in the environment and also through agricultural and industrial pollution. Since arsenic species show different toxicities, it is important to be able to separate them. Methods using microorganisms are being applied increasingly to remove metal ions and different metal species from aqueous solutions. Accumulation of As(III) by Chlorella vulgaris algae was studied, including various factors that influence on accumulation capacity, e.g. pretreatment of the algae (live, dry and lyophilized algae), temperature (4, 22, 37 and 100 °C), pH and exposure time of the algae to arsenic solutions. The pH appears to be the most critical factor, probably due to the species presenting different charges with pH variation. For arsenic species determination, hydride generation atomic absorption spectrometry (HG–AAS) was employed. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. |
