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The public defense of the EMU Institute of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences doctoral student Villem Aruoja´s PhD thesis «Algae Pseudokirchneriella Subcapitata in Environmental Hazard Evaluation of Chemicals and Synthetic Nanoparticles» took place on December 19.

According to the author, researching algae is important as algae are the principal photosynthetic organisms in water bodies and represent roughly half of Earths primary production. 

In the PhD thesis a growth inhibition test was enhanced that Aruoja used for evaluating the environmental of chemicals and synthetic nanoparticles. The developing of this method constitutes an important part of the entire research as it allowes testing of a high number of samples with limited workload and is more versatile than previous test methods. As a rule, the higher the number of nanoparticles resulted in higher toxicity but heavy metals in some cases even stimulated the algal growth.

The supervisors of the thesis are Dr. Anne Kahru, prof. Henri-Charles Dubourguier and prof. Kalev Sepp . The opponent of the thesis is Prof. Cornelis A.M. van Gestel (Department of Animal Ecology, Faculty of Earth and Life Sciences VU University, Amsterdam, Netherlands). The thesis is available in the EMU and TU Libraries.

See the entire thesis here: www.geoeco.ut.ee/1090551