Monitoring of Soils Pollution by a Respirometric Biosensor

An integral toxicity test, based on immobilised yeast cells coupled to an amperometric oxygen gas diffusion electrode, is proposed to evaluate the toxicity of some different soil samples. Some of the most common pollutants were added to the samples in order to relate the resulting toxicity to their different chemical-physical characteristics. Tests at different times after the artificial pollution were also performed in order to look for any spontaneous degradation activity.