Microalgae-based wastewater treatment: Mechanisms, challenges, recent advances, and future prospects

Abdallah Abdelfattah; Sameh Samir Ali; Hassan Ramadan; Eslam Ibrahim El-Aswar; Reham Eltawab; Shih-Hsin Ho; Tamer Elsamahy; Shengnan Li; Mostafa M El-Sheekh; Michael Schagerl; Michael Kornaros; Jianzhong Sun

doi:10.1016/j.ese.2022.100205

Microalgae-based wastewater treatment: Mechanisms, challenges, recent advances, and future prospects

Environ Sci Ecotechnol. 2022 Sep 8:13:100205. doi: 10.1016/j.ese.2022.100205. eCollection 2023 Jan.

Authors

Abdallah Abdelfattah^{1

2}, Sameh Samir Ali^{3

4}, Hassan Ramadan², Eslam Ibrahim El-Aswar⁵, Reham Eltawab^{1

2}, Shih-Hsin Ho⁶, Tamer Elsamahy³, Shengnan Li⁶, Mostafa M El-Sheekh⁴, Michael Schagerl⁷, Michael Kornaros⁸, Jianzhong Sun³

Affiliations

¹ School of Environment and Safety Engineering, Jiangsu University, Zhenjiang, 212013, PR China.
² Department of Public Works Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Tanta University, Tanta, 31511, Egypt.
³ Biofuels Institute, School of the Environment and Safety Engineering, Jiangsu University, Zhenjiang, 212013, PR China.
⁴ Botany Department, Faculty of Science, Tanta University, Tanta, 31527, Egypt.
⁵ Central Laboratories for Environmental Quality Monitoring (CLEQM), National Water Research Center (NWRC), El-Kanater, 13621, Qalyubiyah, Egypt.
⁶ State Key Laboratory of Urban Water Resource and Environment, School of Environment, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, 150090, PR China.
⁷ Department of Functional and Evolutionary Ecology, University of Vienna, Djerassiplatz 1, A-1030 Vienna, Austria.
⁸ Laboratory of Biochemical Engineering & Environmental Technology (LBEET), Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Patras, 1 Karatheodori Str., University Campus, 26504, Patras, Greece.

Abstract

The rapid expansion of both the global economy and the human population has led to a shortage of water resources suitable for direct human consumption. As a result, water remediation will inexorably become the primary focus on a global scale. Microalgae can be grown in various types of wastewaters (WW). They have a high potential to remove contaminants from the effluents of industries and urban areas. This review focuses on recent advances on WW remediation through microalgae cultivation. Attention has already been paid to microalgae-based wastewater treatment (WWT) due to its low energy requirements, the strong ability of microalgae to thrive under diverse environmental conditions, and the potential to transform WW nutrients into high-value compounds. It turned out that microalgae-based WWT is an economical and sustainable solution. Moreover, different types of toxins are removed by microalgae through biosorption, bioaccumulation, and biodegradation processes. Examples are toxins from agricultural runoffs and textile and pharmaceutical industrial effluents. Microalgae have the potential to mitigate carbon dioxide and make use of the micronutrients that are present in the effluents. This review paper highlights the application of microalgae in WW remediation and the remediation of diverse types of pollutants commonly present in WW through different mechanisms, simultaneous resource recovery, and efficient microalgae-based co-culturing systems along with bottlenecks and prospects.

Keywords: Bioremediation; Co-culturing; Environmental applications; Microalgae; Wastewater treatment.

Publication types

Review