Microalgal bacterial flocs for wastewater treatment: from concept to pilot scale

Abstract:

Today, environmental biotechnology is getting a powerful pull from one of the most pressing needs of human society: sustainability (Rittmann, 2006). Microalgae, having exerted profound effects on our planet and its biota for billions of years, may play an important role in the development of sustainable environmental technology. They have showed great potential for wastewater treatment and carbon dioxide mitigation (Soletto et al., 2008; Wang et al., 2008; Doucha et al., 2005), while producing novel biomass with higher yield potentials (up to 50 ton dry matter ha-1 year-1 in Northwest Europe; Wijffels, 2008) and lower water demand than terrestrial biomass (Gouveai and Oliveira, 2009; Posten and Schaub, 2009). Microalgal biomass applications are numerous (Loutseti et al., 2009; Spolaore et al., 2006). Microalgae can contribute in the development of more integrated and cost-efficient environmental technologies (Avagyan, 2008; Rittman, 2008; Gronlund et al., 2004) such as wastewater treatment. Conventional wastewater treatment with activated sludge has a large carbon footprint due to the high energy use for aeration and CO2 emission from organic carbon conversion by heterotrophic bacteria (Cakira and Stenstromb, 2005). By using microalgal bacterial consortia for wastewater treatment, CO2 can be converted to biomass while O2 is produced in situ. This O2 is utilized by heterotrophic bacteria for the aerobic biodegradation of organic compounds to CO2, which in turn is assimilated by the microalgae. Consequently, photosynthetic CO2 uptake increases the overall biomass yield, whereby the concomitant generated biomass furnishes an …

Año de publicación:

2014

Keywords:

Fuente:

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