Auto-flocculation through cultivation of Chlorella vulgaris in seafood wastewater discharge: Influence of culture conditions on microalgae growth and nutrient removal

Thi Dong Phuong Nguyen, Thi Ngoc Thu Tran, Thi Van Anh Le, Truc Xuyen Nguyen Phan, Pau Loke Show, Shir Reen Chia

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

40 Scopus citations

Abstract

Nowadays, the pretreatment of wastewater prior to discharge is very important in various industries as the wastewater without any treatment contains high organic pollution loads that would pollute the receiving waterbody and potentially cause eutrophication and oxygen depletion to aquatic life. The reuse of seafood wastewater discharge in microalgae cultivation offers beneficial purposes such as reduced processing cost for wastewater treatment, replenishing ground water basin as well as financial savings for microalgae cultivation. In this paper, the cultivation of Chlorella vulgaris with an initial concentration of 0.01 ± 0.001 g⋅L −1 using seafood sewage discharge under sunlight and fluorescent illumination was investigated in laboratory-scale without adjusting mineral nutrients and pH. The ability of nutrient removal under different lighting conditions, the metabolism of C. vulgaris and new medium as well as the occurrence of auto-flocculation of microalgae biomass were evaluated for 14 days. The results showed that different illumination sources did not influence the microalgae growth, chemical oxygen demand (COD) and biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) significantly. However, the total nitrogen (total-N) and total phosphorus (total-P) contents of microalgae were sensitive to the illumination mode. The amount of COD, BOD, total-N and total-P were decreased by 88%, 81%, 95%, and 83% under sunlight mode and 81%, 74%, 79%, and 72% under fluorescent illumination, respectively. Furthermore, microalgae were auto-flocculated at the final days of cultivation with maximum biomass concentration of 0.49 ± 0.01 g⋅L −1 , and the pH value had increased to pH 9.8 ± 0.1 under sunlight illumination.

Original languageBritish English
Pages (from-to)492-498
Number of pages7
JournalJournal of Bioscience and Bioengineering
Volume127
Issue number4
DOIs
StatePublished - Apr 2019

Keywords

  • Chlorella vulgaris
  • Green energy
  • Growth condition
  • Nutrient removal
  • Wastewater treatment

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