Screening of green microalgae species for extracellular phenoloxidase activity useful for wastewater phycoremediation

In Mediterranean area there are several olive oil mills and tanning plants producing a large amount of wastewaters rich of phenolic compounds. Our research group is aimed to identify microalgae species with extracellular phenoloxidase activity to use them in wastewaters phycoremediation. In order to achieve our goal, we have started a screening of a microalgae collection available at the University of Naples (Department of Biological Science). So far, one hundred microalgae strains have been tested for enzymatic extracellular activity in the presence of: 2,2-azino-bis 3-ethybenzthiazoline- 6-sulfonic acid (ABTS); Remazol Brilliant Blue R (RBBR); syringaldazine; 2,6-dimethoxyphenol (2,6- DMP). Among them, two strains have shown promising results for phenols degradations.