Microalgae and wastewater treatment.

By N. Abdel-Raouf, A. A. Al-Homaidan, I. Ibraheem. Saudi Journal of Biological Sciences, 2012

1,311 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Organic and inorganic substances which were released into the environment as a result of domestic, agricultural and industrial water activities lead to organic and inorganic pollution. The normal primary and secondary treatment processes of these wastewaters have been introduced in a growing number of places, in order to eliminate the easily settled materials and to oxidize the organic material present in wastewater. The final result is a clear, apparently clean effluent which is discharged into natural water bodies. This secondary effluent is, however, loaded with inorganic nitrogen and phosphorus and causes eutrophication and more long-term problems because of refractory organics and heavy metals that are discharged. Microalgae culture offers an interesting step for wastewater treatments, because they provide a tertiary biotreatment coupled with the production of potentially valuable biomass, which can be used for several purposes. Microalgae cultures offer an elegant solution to tertiary and quandary treatments due to the ability of microalgae to use inorganic nitrogen and phosphorus for their growth. And also, for their capacity to remove heavy metals, as well as some toxic organic compounds, therefore, it does not lead to secondary pollution. In the current review we will highlight on the role of micro-algae in the treatment of wastewater.

Subfields: Environmental Chemistry, Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/01acb248d15f3100c27f43b6b1166d1f008f1769

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In Environmental Chemistry

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Citations in the corpus

• Assessment of the bioenergy and bioremediation potentials of the microalga Scenedesmus sp. AMDD cultivated in municipal wastewater effluent in batch and continuous mode (2012, background): “This is consistent with the work of other groups who have shown similar reductions in trace metal concentrations from wastewaters during algal cultivation [26,19].”
• Ammonium Utilization in Microalgae: A Sustainable Method for Wastewater Treatment (2021, background): “In autotrophic microalgae cultivation, algae can give a further possibility of integrating the nutrient removal with carbon capture: CO2 can be incorporated into biomolecules as proteins, carbohydrates, and lipids by photosynthetic reactions [55].”
• Microalgal Biostimulants and Biofertilisers in Crop Productions (2019, background): “Biofertilisers are products containing living microorganisms or natural substances that are able to improve soil chemical and biological properties, stimulating plant growth, and restoring soil fertility [25].”
• Effectiveness of Domestic Wastewater Treatment Using a Bio-Hedge Water Hyacinth Wetland System (2015, background): “According to the literature reports [8,46], water hyacinth and facultative ponds are reported with relative ease to construct, simple to design, low maintenance, inexpensive operation, and habitat value.”
• Salt Tolerance and Desalination Abilities of Nine Common Green Microalgae Isolates (2019, background): “Numerous studies have shown that microalgae can be used to treat wastewater of various origins [18].”
• Commercial astaxanthin production derived by green alga Haematococcus pluvialis: A microalgae process model and a techno-economic assessment all through production line (2016, background): “Nevertheless, the resulted algal biomass could be utilized only for bio-energy production and for animal feeding supplements, since wastewater algae may be associated with contamination issues (Cheunbarn & Peerapornpisal, 2010; Abdel-Raouf et al., 2012).”
• The dual roles of phycoremediation of wet market wastewater for nutrients and heavy metals removal and microalgae biomass production (2016, background): “Therefore, phycoremediation technology is one of the techniques which has high potential to reduce nitrogen in wastewater (Abdel-Raouf et al. 2012).”
• Bioremediation of different types of polluted water using microalgae (2016, background): “Suspended solids are removed principally by physical sedimentation (Choi and Lee 2012; Abdel-Raouf et al. 2012).”