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COMPARISON OF THE SENSITIVITY OF BIOTESTING TECHNIQUES IN DETERMINING THE TOXICITY OF HEAVY METALS AND PHENOLIC COMPOUNDS

М. Н. Саксонов

Abstract

At present, biotesting methods are widely used to assess the toxicity of environmental objects. Priority environmental pollutants include heavy metals and phenolic compounds. The aim of this work is to compare the sensitivity of biotesting methods to determine the toxicity of waters containing heavy metals and phenolic compounds. To achieve this, biotesting methods based on the survival of Daphnia magna crustaceans, changes in the intensity of bioluminescence of the saccharifying bacteria (the "Ecolum" test system), the change in the fluorescence level of the chlorophyll of algal cells Scenedesmus guadricauda were used. The work used heavy metals (mercury, cadmium, lead, arsenic) and phenolic compounds (monophenol, pyrocatechin, hydroquinone, p-benzoquinone). In the experiments, the inhibitory concentration of all test substances was determined to reduce the value of the test function by 50% or more compared to the control. The experiments revealed that for different biotesting methods used, the acute toxicity of the same substance differed by a factor of tens. Series of sensitivity of the test objects are constructed with respect to the heavy metals and phenols under investigation. The greatest toxic effect of heavy metals on all tested test objects was mercury, from phenolic compounds - p-benzoquinone. It was revealed that the most sensitive to most of the heavy metals represented is the method based on the mortality of daphnia. The phenols are the most sensitive to the test phenols - a method based on changes in the fluorescence level of chlorophyll of algal cells. The use of tested biotesting methods for the biological analysis of different groups of pollutants is discussed. The study made it possible to propose the most sensitive methods of biotesting to assess the toxicity of heavy metals and phenols in water.

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DOI resolver: doi.org/10.5593/sgem2018/5.1/s20.027

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