Studies on the effect on physicochemical parameters and microalgae in quality salt production

Abstract

An attempt has been made to understand the physico-chemical parameters, newlinephytoplankton abundance, biochemical composition of microalgae and the algal inoculation newlinein quality salt production. This study was carried out in Sri Sankara Allom Salt Factory, newlinePuthalam, Kanyakumari District, Tamil Nadu during March 2009 to February 2011. This newlinesaltworks used sub-soil brine for salt production process. During the study, the surface newlinewater and algal samples were collected from three different salinities (reservoir, condenser newlineand crystallizer) covering four seasons (summer, spring, autumn and winter). newlineThe physico-chemical parameters studied include rainfall, atmospheric and brine newlinetemperature, pH, depth, salinity, biological oxygen demand, total dissolved solids, chloride, newlinesulphate, sodium, calcium, iron, magnesium and potassium. During the study, microalgal newlinespecies belonging to 19 genera of phytoplankton which includes Pleurosigma, Navicula, newlineCyclotella, Pinnularia, Amphora, Nitzschia, Coscinodiscus, Dunaliella, Chlorella, newlineClosterium, Oscillatoria, Spirulina, Lyngbya, Anabaena, Gloeocapsa, Chroococcus, newlineSynechococcus, Exuviella and Peridinum were identified and grouped into four classes newlinenamely Bacillariophyta, Chlorophyta, Cyanophyta and Dinophyta. In these Synechococcus newlineappear only in condenser ponds but Dunaliella and Chroococcus present in all the ponds newlinethroughout the study period. newlineThe important biomolecules such as total protein and chlorophyll a were estimated. The newlinealgal samples present in the condenser pond contain large amount of biomolecules when newlinecompares with other ponds (reservoir and crystallizer). The biomolecules expressed newline