Bioaccumulation of copper(II) and nickel(II) by the non-adapted and adapted growing Candida sp.

The effect of copper(II) and nickel(II) ions on the growth and bioaccumulation properties of non-adapted and adapted growing cells of a non-pathogenic Candida sp. has been tested under laboratory conditions as a function of initial pH and initial metal ion concentration. Optimum pH value for maximum metal ion accumulation was determined as 4.0 for both the metal ions. Although the copper(II) adapted Candida sp. was capable of removing of copper(II) with the maximum specific uptake capacity of 36.9 mg g-1 at 783.6 mg dm-3 initial copper(II) concentration, non-adapted Candida was only capable of bioaccumulating copper(II) with 23.1 mg g-1 maximum uptake capacity from aqueous solution at 578.7 mg dm-3 initial copper(II) concentration. The non-adapted and nickel(II) adapted Candida cells also showed the highest nickel(II) uptake capacities (46.8 and 30.8 mg g-1, respectively) at 321.5 and 300.6 mg dm-3 initial nickel(II) concentrations, respectively. For both the non-adapted and nickel(II) adapted Candida sp., the growth of cells was totally inhibited by 500 mg dm-3 of nickel(II) ions. The results also indicated that copper(II) adapted Candida sp. has been found to be more efficient to accumulate larger amounts of copper(II) than that of nickel(II) bioaccumulated by nickel(II) adapted Candida at higher initial metal ion concentrations without loosing its biological activity.