Municipal wastewater treatment through cultivation of a new strain of microalgae Chlorella sorokiniana pa.۹۱ in flat plate photobioreactor (FP-PBR)

Water resources crisis and concerns about environmental pollution lead to promote traditional wastewater treatment process. Biological wastewater treatment (BWWT) through microalgae cultivation is one of the promising method that perfectly remove pollution caused by nutrients such as nitrate, phosphate and/or COD from wastewater because microalga consume nutrients for growing. In this research, a new isolated strain microalgae so called C. sorokiniana pa.۹۱ has been cultivated in flat pate photobioreactor (FP-PBR) for the purpose of biological treatment of real municipal wastewater. The results showed that by cultivation of C. sorokiniana pa.۹۱ in the photobioreactor under the optimized condition (temperature = ۳۰ C and Light intensity = ۴۰۰۰ Lux), maximum biomass concentration and productivity of ۳.۲۱ gL-۱ and ۰.۳۱ gL-۱d-۱ were achieved, respectively. Experimental results showed that C. sorokiniana pa.۹۱ has a high capacity to remove ۷۴% of ammonia (NH۳), ۹۳% of Nitrate (NO۳-), ۸۳% of phosphate (PO۴-۳) and ۷۶% of COD from real municipal wastewater after eight days of cultivation in the photobioreactor.

Keywords:

Wastewater treatment , Chlorella sorokiniana pa.۹۱ microalgae , nitrate and phosphate removal , biomass productivity