Wastewater as a Source of Nutrients for Microalgae Biomass Production (original) (raw)
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World journal of microbiology & biotechnology, 2016
Untreated wastewaters have been a great concern and can cause major pollution problems for environment. Conventional approaches for treating wastewater involve tremendous capital cost, have major short comings and are not sustainable. Microalgae culture offers an interesting step for wastewater treatment. Microalgae serve the dual purpose of phycoremediation along with the production of potentially valuable biomass, which can be used for several purposes. The ability of microalgae to accumulate nitrogen, phosphorus, heavy metals and other toxic compounds can be integrated with wastewater treatment system to offer an elegant solution towards tertiary and quaternary treatment. The current review explores possible role of microalgal based wastewater treatment and explores the current progress, key challenges, limitations and future prospects with special emphasis on strategies involved in harvesting, boosting biomass and lipid yield.
Journal of Applied Phycology, 2016
The utilization of microalgae for wastewater treatment represents an attractive opportunity for wastewater valorization through the use of the produced biomass. Five strains of microalgae were isolated from municipal wastewater and grown in autoclaved and non-autoclaved effluent at 30°C and 150 μmol photons m −2 s −1 to study biomass production, nutrient removal, and the biochemical composition of the biomass. All strains reached high biomass productivity (35.6 to 54.2 mg dry weight L −1 day −1) within 4 days of batch culturing. In this period, ammonium-N and phosphate were reduced by more than 60 and 90 %, respectively. The high growth rate (0.57 to 1.06 day −1) ensured a rapid removal of nutrients and thereby a short retention time. By the fourth day of cultivation, the algal biomass contained 32 % protein, but only 11 % lipids and 18 % carbohydrates. It was found that the biomass was a suitable raw material for biogas production by anaerobic digestion. Biodigestion of obtained biomass was simulated by employing the Aspen HYSYS modeling software, resulting in methane yields comparable to those found in the literature. The elemental analysis of the algal biomass showed very low concentrations of pollutants, demonstrating the potential of use of the digestate from biodigestion as a bio-fertilizer.
Water
The treatment of different types of wastewater by physicochemical or biological (non-microalgal) methods could often be either inefficient or energy-intensive. Microalgae are ubiquitous microscopic organisms, which thrive in water bodies that contain the necessary nutrients. Wastewaters are typically contaminated with nitrogen, phosphorus, and other trace elements, which microalgae require for their cell growth. In addition, most of the microalgae are photosynthetic in nature, and these organisms do not require an organic source for their proliferation, although some strains could utilize organics both in the presence and absence of light. Therefore, microalgal bioremediation could be integrated with existing treatment methods or adopted as the single biological method for efficiently treating wastewater. This review paper summarized the mechanisms of pollutants removal by microalgae, microalgal bioremediation potential of different types of wastewaters, the potential application of...
Microalgae and sustainable wastewater treatment: a Review
Bayero Journal of Pure and Applied Sciences, 2019
INTRODUCTION Wastewaters from homes and industries require certain level of treatment prior to discharge into natural water courses. wastewater has traditionally been treated using waste stabilisation ponds (WSP), activated sludge (AS), trickling filters, etc. wastewater treatment involves the use of energy with consequent emission of carbon dioxide (CO 2) into the atmosp example, AS process requires considerable amount of energy usually generated through the combustion of fossil fuels. However, stringent regulations on reducing carbon emissions (Department of Energy and Climate Change, 2009; Environment Agency, 2009 coupled with escalating energy for the need to develop energy carbon-neutral wastewater treatment technologies. Treatment processes that couple carbon capture and wastewater treatment with low or no carbon emission (Mohammed, 2013 considered as the most sustainable option Microalgae use light, CO 2 , nutrients and water to produce biomass through photosynthesis (Hsueh et al., 2009). Commercial cultivation of microalgae usually involves the use of freshwater resources and considerable amount of nutrients. Synthetic fertilisers are also used as source of nutrients in such systems and this adds to the overall cost of the process.
Engineering Journal, 2020
Combination of suitable algae species with wastewater condition is important to achieve high productivity of algae with remarkable removal of contaminants. However, the usage of algae in treating wastewater has not yet to show sufficient removal efficiency when the biomass productivity is extremely enhanced. This review aims to scrutinize and discuss: (1) several promising species for this coupling method; (2) main wastewater characteristics related to the microalgae biomass production and their removal efficiency; (3) metal occurrences and other biotic factors; and (4) constraint of microalgae biomass production and wastewater treatment process. Microalgae such as Chlorella, Spirulina and Scenedesmus are among the most utilized microalgae because of their utilities. Chemical oxygen demand (COD) total nitrogen (TN), and total phosphorous (TP) concentrations affect biomass yield of algae cultivation. Metals occurrences, light intensity and carbon dioxide availability play an importan...
ASM Science Journal, 2021
Microalgae have been found to have high prospects in wastewater treatment, particularly from agriculture. However, the uneconomical algal medium growth has become the major disadvantaged in algal industry. Multiple attempts includes the development of microalgae phycoremediation technology has been integrated into wastewater treatment to reduce the cost of expensive wastewater remediation. Utilising wastewater as a low-cost nutrient medium offers a synergistic effect of wastewater nutrient removal and co-production of valuable biomass simultaneously. This paper is mainly focused on potential, ability, strategy, application (i.e., palm oil wastewater), limitation and challenges of microalgae in agricultural wastewater treatment using phycoremediation. The understanding of cultivating microalgae using agriculture wastewater shall promote the utilisation of wastewater more sustainably in the future. The possible solutions in the application of microalgae for aquaculture and agriculture...
Microalgae cultivation integrated into agro-industrial wastewater treatment
Ecocycles, 2021
The world demands more and more energy due to the continuous population increase. In parallel, high organic and nutrient contents of wastewater streams are generated from anthropogenic activities like urbanization, industrialization, and agricultural practices. The continuous discharge of these wastewater streams into water bodies has been considered responsible for oxygen depletion and eutrophication in the environment. Integrating microalgae cultivation into wastewater treatment can be a promising solution to produce renewable energy while removing pollutants. In contrast to several review articles published about microalgae cultivation on different wastewater streams, the current review is focusing mainly on microalgae-based wastewater treatment on agricultural waste streams. Hence, first of all, the main characteristics of different agricultural streams will be described, then microalgal consortia cultivation, as well as monoculture strains, will be evaluated. Moreover, the phot...
Microalgae: A Renewable Source for Wastewater Treatment and Feedstock Supply for Biofuel Generation
Biointerface Research in Applied Chemistry
The search and exploitation of renewable clean energy sources have become crucial, because of the developing day by day interest for clean water and energy affected by the improvement of the economy, population, industrialization, urbanization, insufficient energy, climate abnormalities, and environmental pollution. The major cause of emissions of harmful gases into the environment is due to the high utilization of petroleum derivatives. In this way, it is paramount to explore environmentally sustainable energy sources for feasible advancement, to satisfy these expanding energy demands and to secure the environment. To mitigate these global problems, academic, industrial, and governmental sectors have engaged in a lot of brainstorming and research to surmount these difficulties, which have brought a steady flow of new information in the area of cultivation of microalgae in innovative technologies including photobioreactors and high rate algal ponds. In this respect, biomass generatio...
Microalgae and wastewater treatment
Organic and inorganic substances which were released into the environment as a result of domestic, agricultural and industrial water activities lead to organic and inorganic pollution. The normal primary and secondary treatment processes of these wastewaters have been introduced in a growing number of places, in order to eliminate the easily settled materials and to oxidize the organic material present in wastewater. The final result is a clear, apparently clean effluent which is discharged into natural water bodies. This secondary effluent is, however, loaded with inorganic nitrogen and phosphorus and causes eutrophication and more long-term problems because of refractory organics and heavy metals that are discharged. Microalgae culture offers an interesting step for wastewater treatments, because they provide a tertiary biotreatment coupled with the production of potentially valuable biomass, which can be used for several purposes. Microalgae cultures offer an elegant solution to tertiary and quandary treatments due to the ability of microalgae to use inorganic nitrogen and phosphorus for their growth. And also, for their capacity to remove heavy metals, as well as some toxic organic compounds, therefore, it does not lead to secondary pollution. In the current review we will highlight on the role of micro-algae in the treatment of wastewater.
Microalgae: The Multifaceted Biomass of the 21st Century
Biomass [Working Title], 2020
Microalgae are unicellular, eukaryotic organisms which possess unique qualities of replication, producing biomass as a precursor for biofuels, nutraceuticals, biofertilizer, and fine chemicals including hydrocarbons. Microalgae access nitrates and phosphates in wastewater from municipalities, industries, and agricultural processes to grow. Wastewater is, therefore, culture media for microalgae, and provides the needed nutrients, micronutrients, inorganic and organic pollutants to produce microalgae biomass. Suitable strains of microalgae cultivated under mesophilic conditions in wastewater with optimized hydrodynamics, hydraulic retention time (HRT), luminous intensity, and other co-factors produce biomass of high specific growth rate, high productivity, and with high density. The hydrodynamics are determined using a range of bioreactors from raceway ponds, photobioreactors to hybrid reactors. Carbon dioxide is used in the photosynthetic process, which offers different growth stimul...