Some resources such as soil, air and water are considered inexhaustible and renewable. But in reality, due to massive pollution, the quality of these resources is affected. Increasing quantities, together with the increasing complexity of pollutants, slow the natural processes of self-purification and self-purge. Current technologies used to clean and purify fail to restore the original resource quality. In this regard, algae have been introduced into various methods of treating polluted resources to improve current technologies or to replace them. Marine algae are photosynthetic aquatic plants, which become waste if they are not valorized. In the developed countries they are used as raw or secondary material in different industries. The most important issues of marine algae usage in various industrial applications (pharmaceutical, cosmetics, food, biofuel and sewage treatment industries) are reviewed in this paper, with a focus on their biosorption properties and valorification for accumulation of heavy metals from industrial wastewater.
This paper presents the results obtained from the analysis of some filter paper samples using Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) technique. Based on the FTIR capabilities, using the infrared light to scan the samples and identify their chemical properties, organic, polymeric and inorganic materials can be characterized. The samples analysed were six filter papers with different mass additions of Ulva Rigida C. Agardh seaweed collected from the Black Sea, in Constanta area, SE Romania. The additions used consisted of 0.5%, 1%, 2%, 4% and 8% seaweed material, grounded to a certain grain size.
In this article, it will be presented the results obtained from research conducted in order to reduce the concentrations of metals in industrial wastewater resulted from heavy metal polluting industries, especially the metallurgical industry. Most of the world's water sources are profoundly negatively affected by human activities, and the population faces critical water supply and drinking water quality problems. Millions of people develop various diseases from drinking water from unsafe or poor quality sources, creating a global public health problem. Due to massive industrialisation, current water treatment methods are outdated, which is why water treatment and purification laws, regulations, and controls need to be updated to minimise and stop contamination of the food chain. It is the responsibility of the researchers to make the public aware of the dangers to which they are exposed due to their own negligence and to offer possible solutions to these problems. New, reliable, viable, cheap, and sustainable technologies must be developed to improve drinking water quality. One such technology that can be developed and implemented is using the biological method of biosorption. Stranded seaweed on the Romanian Black Sea coast is currently treated as waste, but it could be exploited as biomass in the biosorption process. The research aimed to investigate the possibility of valorification of macrophyte seaweed species in this direction. Five different species of stranded macrophyte seaweed were collected and used to remove selected metallic ions (Cr, Fe, Zn, Cu) from a source of wastewater resulted from the metallurgical industry processes. The wastewater samples were analyzed before and after the application of the biosorption technique using the spectrophotometric method.
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