The cyanobacterium Arthrospira platensis, colloquially known as Spirulina is/was a popular health food/supplement because it is extremely rich in amino acids and vitamins. However, these cyanobacteria also happen to be extremely good at absorbing lead, which means that these supplements are often contaminated with toxic amounts of heavy metals. One suggested application for these cyanobacteria is in bioremediation systems for industrial/mining wastewater contaminated with lead Question: The way that this application would work is that you’d have a sealed concrete pond full of the cyanobacteria that wastewater would flow into and then as the wastewater flows out the other end of the pond, the cyanobacteria are removed. How would this work to remove lead from the water?
Background info: The cyanobacterium Arthrospira platensis, colloquially known as Spirulina is/was a popular health food/supplement because it is extremely rich in amino acids and vitamins. However, these cyanobacteria also happen to be extremely good at absorbing lead, which means that these supplements are often contaminated with toxic amounts of heavy metals. One suggested application for these cyanobacteria is in bioremediation systems for industrial/mining wastewater contaminated with lead
Question: The way that this application would work is that you’d have a sealed concrete pond full of the cyanobacteria that wastewater would flow into and then as the wastewater flows out the other end of the pond, the cyanobacteria are removed. How would this work to remove lead from the water?
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