Biotechnological potential of microalgae from the Reconquista River

MARÍA MAR ARECO; VICTORIA PASSUCCI; NICOLAS ROTELLA; GUSTAVO CURUTCHET

Capital federal

Seminario; How to follow your research career at German top universities; 2018

Several studies of microalgae culture systems have been conducted in order to obtain energy and metabolites (Areco et al. 2013; Liu et al., 2017). Also the ability of microalgae to remediate effluents containing heavy metals have been demonstrated, mainly due to their capacity of adsorption and also to their ability to reverse the acidic conditions, which favors the precipitation of heavy metals (Areco, et al., 2018). Reconquista River is heavily polluted and San Martin district is emplaced in its basin. Using microalgae isolated from this contaminated river for the development of such experiences have some advantages: 1) they are adapted to live in polluted environments; 2) there are many species which are not entirely described and; 3) the study of these new species may be significant for scientific and technological progress. The development of these investigations has a great scientific and technological interest since microalgae have a biotechnological potential that has not being fully explored. Then, in our laboratory using autochthonous microalgae, we develop effluent bioremediation processes; and study the production of sustainable energy and metabolites of commercial interest.