Toxic response of aquatic organisms to guide application of artemisinin sustained-release granule algaecide

In our previous study, we prepared the granules by embedding artemisinin into alginate-chitosan using microcapsule technology. Thesgranules can release artemisinin sustainably and have a strong inhibitory effect on the growth of both single Microcystis aeruginosa and mixealgae. To safely and effectively use artemisinin sustained-release granules to control algal blooms, the ecotoxicity was studied by assessing theacute and chronic toxicity to Daphnia magna(D. magna) and Danio rerio(D. rerio), along with their antioxidant activities. The results showethat the 48-h median effective concentration(EC50) of pure artemisinin to D. magna was 24.54 mg/L and the 96-h median lethal concentratio(LC50) of pure artemisinin to D. rerio was 68.08 mg/L. Both values were classified as intermediate toxicity according to the Organization foEconomic Co-operation and Development(OECD). The optimal algae inhibitory concentration of artemisinin sustained-release granules(1 g/Lhad low acute toxicity to both D. magna and D. rerio. The sustained-release granules had higher chronic toxicity to D. magna than to D. reriPartial indices of D. magna were inhibited by granules when the concentrations were larger than 0.1 g/L. Low granule concentration had ainductive effect on antioxidant enzyme activities in D. magna and D. rerio. With the increase of the exposure concentration and time, the enzymactivity presented a trend of first increasing and then decreasing, and the overall changes were significant. The change trend and range of enzymactivity indicated that the granules could cause serious oxidative stress to D. magna and D. rerio, and the changes were consistent with the resultof toxicity experimentation.