The effect of Copper Oxide Nanoparticle on Pigments Systems of Algae Scenedesmus dimorphus

Abstract

Introduction: Due to very small dimensions, nanomaterials can have different properties compared to their bulk form. In nanometer dimension of material, atomic behavior dominates. Such behavior changes may adversely affect biological organism, especially phytoplankton as the basis of food chain cycle. For this reason, in current research, toxicity of CuO nanoparticles (CuO NP) on Scenedesmus dimorphus has been evaluated. The average size of CuO NP used were 20 nm. Materials and methods: The experiments were conducted under OECD201 method. The toxic effect of CuO NP was investigated at 5 different concentrations of 2.5, 6.5, 17.4, 45.7, 120 mg/L against control in three replicates for each treatment and control. All samples were treated at constant temperature of 24 °C and 12-hour period of light and dark for 72 hours. Algae count was done at time intervals of 24, 48 and 72h. Chlorophyll assay was done according to ASTM standard. Results: EC10, EC50, and EC90 amounts for 72 hours were 0.18, 28.84 and 4477.35 mg/L, respectively. With time, chlorophyll concentration was decreased in all treatments except for 57.68 mg/L. Carotenoid showed significant decrease between all treatments and the control and also among different treatments (pDiscussion and conclusion: These results showed that CuO NP had significant toxic effect on Scenedesmus dimorphus and resulted to reduction in growth rate and increase in doubling time. Also, the percent inhibition was increased with increasing CuO NP concentration. The chlorophyll and carotenoid levels decreased in Scenedesmus dimorphus by increasing CuO NP concentration.

Keywords

• algae scenedesmus dimorphus
• chlorophyll
• cuo nanoparticle
• growth inhibition
• toxicity