Abstract
Wastewater is available medium for microalgal growth due to the presence of macro- and micro-nutrients. However, untreated wastewaters have high concentration of pollutants, chemical oxygen demand (COD), and toxicity which are not favorable for microalgae growth. Thus, mixing different wastewater to balance the nutrient availability might be a suitable approach. The performance of green microalga T. dimorphus GEEL-06 was evaluated for combined wastewater (including pharmaceutical and domestic effluent) treatment at various mixing ratios (1:500, 1:750, and 1:1000×). The microalgal growth kinetics, total nitrogen (TN), total phosphor (TP), COD, fatty acids (FAs) composition, and biodiesel quality were also analyzed. Maximum microalgal growth (1.381 OD680nm) was obtained at 1000×, while high-loading nutrients hindered microalgal growth. T. obliquus GEEL-06 exhibited high nutrient removal N (89.02%) and P (82.73%) from 1000× wastewater. Major fatty acids (FAs) detected in harvested biomass were palmitic acid (33.72%), linoleic acid (22.92%), trans-9-elaidic acid (16.18%), and oleic acid (12.36%). The biodiesel feasibility and properties were confirmed by the presence of C16/C18 accounting for 97.97%. A higher percentage of PUFA (30.92%) was observed in 1000×. This study demonstrated that T. dimorphus cultivated in different mixing ratios of wastewater is suitable for nutrient treatment coupled with biomass and biodiesel production.
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The authors are thankful to the Deanship of Scientific Research at Najran University for funding this work, under the Research Groups Funding program grant code (NU/RG/SERC/12/23).
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Zhenni Su: methodology, visualization, investigation, data curation, formal analysis, and writing—original draft. Mohammed Jalalah: conceptualization and methodology. Saeed A. Alsareii: conceptualization and methodology. Farid A. Harraz: conceptualization and methodology. Abdulrhman A. Almadiy: software, investigation, and formal analysis. Monika Sharma: methodology, conceptualization, visualization, review and editing, and supervision. El-Sayed Salama: conceptualization, supervision, resources, data curation, validation, writing—review and editing, funding acquisition, and project administration.
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Highlights
•Growing of microalgae in mixing pharmaceutical and domestic wastewater.
•Microalgal growth and nutrient removal were highest at a mixing ratio of 1:1000.
•The amount of C16/C18 confirmed biodiesel feasibility from microalgal biomass.
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Su, Z., Jalalah, M., Alsareii, S.A. et al. Effect of pharmaceutical and domestic wastewater mixed ratios on microalgal growth for nutrients removal coupled with biomass and liquid biofuel generation. Biomass Conv. Bioref. (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13399-023-04911-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13399-023-04911-5