Microalgal bioremediation of food-processing industrial wastewater under mixotrophic conditions: Kinetics and scale-up approach

Abstract

The Chlorella microalgae were mixotrophically cultivated in an unsterilized and unfiltered raw food-processing industrial wastewater. Both inorganic carbon (CO₂-air) and organic carbon (wastewater) were provided simultaneously for microalgae growth. The aim of the study is to find out the utilization rates of total organic carbon (TOC) and chemical oxygen demand (COD) under mixotrophic conditions for a given waste water. About 90% reduction in TOC and COD were obtained for all dilutions of wastewater. Over 60% of nitrate and 40% of phosphate were consumed by microalgae from concentrated raw wastewater. This study shows that microalgae can use both organic and inorganic sources of carbon in more or less quantity under mixotrophic conditions. The growth of microalgae in food-processing industrial wastewater with all studied dilution factors, viz. zero (raw), 1.6 (dilution A), and 5 (dilution B) suggests that the freshwater requirement could be reduced substantially (20%–60%). The degradation kinetics also suggests that the microalgae cultivation on a high COD wastewater is feasible and scalable.

Graphical abstract

Keywords

total organic carbon / wastewater bioremediation / kinetics / mixotrophic cultivation

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Acknowledgement

The corresponding author is thankful to Department of Science and Technology, New Delhi for their financial support for this research work under the scheme of DST INSPIRE Faculty Award (DST/INSPIRE/04/2013/000445). Authors are very grateful to the Director, CSIR-NEERI Nagpur for providing enough infrastructure facilities to carry out this research.

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2016 Higher Education Press and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg