Intensification of brewery wastewater purification integrated with CO2 fixation via microalgae co-cultivation

Abstract

Microalgae has presented significant potential in wastewater and flue gas purification process. In the present work, co-cultivation of Scenedesmus sp. 336, Chlorella sorokiniana UTEX1602 and Chlorella sp. L166 were investigated to achieve the target of simultaneous biomass accumulation, wastewater treatment and biological carbon fixation. The experimental results showed that when the mixture ratio of Scenedesmus sp. 336 and Chlorella sorokiniana UTEX1602 was set at 1:1 with the ventilation period of 6 h/d, the cell dry weight could reach 796.89 mg/L. The maximum removal efficiency of NH3-N, TN, TP and COD were 96.22%, 90.57%, 97.37% and 78.83%. The contents of chlorophyll, carotenoid and carbohydrate were 16.05, 9.57 and 30.42 mg/L. The productivity of lipid and protein could achieve 20.82 and 142.12 mg/L. The CO2 fixation rate and carbon removal efficiency were 32.09 mg/L/d and 52.21%, respectively. It could be observed that co-cultivation of different microalgae has the potential to intensity simultaneous wastewater purification and CO2 mitigation.