Phycoremediation of paddy-soaked wastewater by indigenous microalgae in open and closed culture system

J Umamaheswari; S Shanthakumar

doi:10.1016/j.jenvman.2019.05.023

Phycoremediation of paddy-soaked wastewater by indigenous microalgae in open and closed culture system

J Environ Manage. 2019 Aug 1:243:435-443. doi: 10.1016/j.jenvman.2019.05.023. Epub 2019 May 17.

Authors

J Umamaheswari¹, S Shanthakumar²

Affiliations

¹ Department of Environmental and Water Resources Engineering, School of Civil Engineering, Vellore Institute of Technology (VIT), Vellore, 632014, Tamil Nadu, India.
² Department of Environmental and Water Resources Engineering, School of Civil Engineering, Vellore Institute of Technology (VIT), Vellore, 632014, Tamil Nadu, India. Electronic address: shanthakumar.s@vit.ac.in.

PMID: 31103689
DOI: 10.1016/j.jenvman.2019.05.023

Abstract

Phycoremediation; biotransformation of nutrients and or pollutants by microalgae, supports sustainable wastewater treatment, coupled with biomass production, resulting in enhanced cost savings, waste minimization, and energy conservation. A major challenge in this technique involves cultivation system to be adopted, mode of treatment and harvesting methods. Three different algal cultivation systems; polybags (PB), photobioreactors (PBR) and race way ponds (RWP) were employed for culturing an indigenous microalga, Scenedesmus obliquus in rice mill paddy-soaked wastewater (PSW). The maximum biomass productivity (BP) of 340 ± 2 mg/L/d was observed in PBR with an ammonical nitrogen (NH₃-N) removal (R_N) of 96.12 ± 0.21% and the phosphates (PO₄-P) removal (R_P) of 97.58 ± 0.18%. Highest lipids (L)∼12% (% biomass), protein (P)∼40% and carbohydrates (C)∼20%) were gained in PBR culture system, followed by RWP and PB.

Keywords: Paddy-soaked wastewater; Photobioreactors; Phycoremediation; Polybags; Raceway ponds; Waste minimization.

MeSH terms

Biomass
Microalgae*
Photobioreactors
Scenedesmus*
Wastewater

Substances

Waste Water