| Summary: | Yttrium is an element of critical importance for industry and technology. Cyanobacteria <i>Arthrospira platensis</i> was employed for Y(III) recovery from contaminated wastewater through biosorption and bioaccumulation processes. The effect of pH of a solution, contact time, temperature, and initial Y(III) concentration on the adsorption behaviour of <i>Arthrospira platensis</i> were studied. The maximum adsorption capacity of 719.8 mg/g was attained at a pH of 3, temperature of 20 °C, and adsorption time of 3 min. The Langmuir and Freundlich isotherm models were suitable to describe the equilibrium of the biosorption, while kinetic of the process followed the pseudo-first-order model. Thermodynamic parameters showed that the biosorption process was spontaneous and exothermic in nature. In bioaccumulation experiments, <i>Arthrospira platensis</i> was able to remove up to 70% of Y(III) from the solution. Beside biomass uptake capacity, the toxic effect of Y(III) on the biomass productivity and biochemical composition was assessed. Thus, Y(III) in concentration of 10–30 mg/L led to a decrease in the content of proteins, carbohydrates, and phycobiliproteins in the biomass and had no significant negative impact on productivity and photosynthetic pigments content. Experiments performed using <i>Arthrospira platensis</i> showed that biological objects have a great potential to be applied for the recovery of rare earth elements from wastewater.
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