Cyanobacteria: as a promising candidate for heavy-metals removal

Water easily gets contaminated with various contaminants such as dyes, toxic/nontoxic metals, and pesticides. A microbial-mediated remediation and separation is an important tool for the removal of hazardous constituents in water. Microbial application in remediation exhibits numerous benefits such as easy availability, green chemistry approach, and being economically viable. This chapter deals with different types of cyanobacteria used for the remediation of polluted water with dyes, pesticides along with separation of toxic/nontoxic metals, the methods applied for dye and pesticide remediation, separation/characterization/identification of separated metals, and analytical tools utilized for calculating the amount of metals separated. Being ubiquitous, cyanobacteria typify as a photosynthetic (autotrophic), N2 fixer, unicellular, and microscale sized, exhibiting rapid reproduction rate. Cyanobacterial species can grow in highly polluted aquatic systems, including synthetic dyes, toxic metals, and also in nutrient-limiting conditions as well as the extreme ecological environment. Cyanobacteria cope with pollutants in different ways such as biotransformation, bioaccumulation, or biosorption of biodegradable or nonbiodegradable pollutants (pesticides, dyes) or toxic metals. Hence, cyanobacterial species are catching attention as a reliable candidate for the remediation and separation of hazardous water contaminants.