Human activity is steadily connected with the production, application and utilization of different chemical compounds. For the last few decades, distribution of above mentioned chemical pollutants from urban, agricultural and industrial sources caused the accumulation of toxic substances potentially harmful for environment, becoming a serious concern for the ecosystem survival.

Contamination of surface water by inorganic and organic pollutants has become one of the most important environmental problems. These contaminants are not easy to destroy biologically but can be transformed from highly toxic to low toxic from, because of that the development of water remediation methods for the removal of chemical contaminants is a widely recognized challenging problem.

For the last decades, for remediation of chemically polluted environment, special technologies have been developed. The most eco-friendly and cost effective among them are phytoremediation technologies, that are based on the unique abilities of plants and microorganisms to assimilate a wide range of toxic organic compounds. The mechanism of phytoremediation is based on absorption of pollutants through roots, accumulation in body tissue, decomposing and transformation of pollutants to a less harmful forms.

Nowadays phytoremediation technologies include a variety of methodological approaches, depending on their purpose. One of the methods is phytoremediation based on application of algae. Arthospira, known as Spirulina, which is currently widely used in the food industry and pharmacology can be applied for phytoremediation of waters polluted by a variety of toxic compounds. The cells of Spirulina contain large amounts of compounds such as: enzymes, peptides, amino acids and etc., all these compounds are capable of immobilizing heavy metals as well as conjugating metabolites of organic pollutants. The structures inside the cells of Spirulina swell with air bubbles, which then causes Spirulina colonies to float onto the water surface and after that it is easy to remove Spirulina from the water sources.

Even though there is not much research done, today it is known that there is opportunity to use Spirulina for clearing water polluted with different heavy metals, petroleum hydrocarbons, pesticides and etc. Recently some data has shown using Spirulina for removal of some estrogens form wastewater. I personally think, that the evaluation of ecological potential of Spirulina, in particular its tolerance and detoxification ability towards organic pollutants, is very valuable for future development in reducing water pollutions.