Bioaccumulation processes for mercury removal from saline waters by green, brown and red living marine macroalgae

Mercury is a very toxic metal that persists and accumulates in the living organisms present in the aquatic systems and its elimination is an urgent need. Two green (Ulva intestinalis and Ulva lactuca), brown (Fucus spiralis and Fucus vesiculosus), and red (Gracilaria sp. and Osmundea pinnatifida) marine macroalgae were tested for mercury removal from saline waters. The ability of each species was evaluated to the initial mercury concentrations of 50, 200, and 500 μg dm-3 along 72 h. In general, all species exhibited good performances, removing 80.9–99.9% from solutions with 50 μg dm-3, 79.3–98.6% from solutions with 200 μg dm-3, and 69.8–97.7% from solutions containing 500 μg dm-3 of mercury. Among the macroalgae, Ulva intestinalis showed the highest affinity to mercury and it presented an uptake ability up to 1888 μg g-1 of Hg(II) and bioconcentration factors up to 3823, which proved its promising potential on Hg removal.