Abstract
Microalgae have become promising microorganisms for generating high-value commercial products and removing pollutants in aquatic systems. This research evaluated the impact of sunlight intensity on intracellular pigment generation and phosphorus removal from secondary effluents by autoflocculating microalgae consortium BR-UANL-01 in photobioreactor culture. Microalgae were grown in a secondary effluent from a wastewater treatment plant, using a combination of low and high light conditions (photon irradiance; 44 μmol m−2 s−1 and ≈ 1270 μmol m−2 s−1, respectively) and 16:8 h light:dark and 24:0 h light:dark (subdivided into 18:6 LED:sunlight) photoperiods. The autoflocculant rate by consortium BR-UANL-01 was not affected by light intensity and achieved 98% in both treatments. Microalgae produced significantly more lutein, (2.91 mg g−1) under low light conditions. Phosphate removal by microalgae resulted above 85% from the secondary effluent, due to the fact that phosphorus is directly associated with metabolic and replication processes and the highest antioxidant activity was obtained in ABTS•+ assay by the biomass under low light condition (51.71% μmol ET g−1). In conclusion, the results showed that the autoflocculating microalgae consortium BR-UANL-01 is capable of synthesizing intracellular lutein, which presents antioxidant activity, using secondary effluents as a growth medium, without losing its autoflocculating activity and assimilating phosphorus.
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The data used in this study is publicly accessible and can be found in the REPOSITORIO ACADÉMICO DIGITAL, Data Repository at the following URL: http://eprints.uanl.mx/id/eprint/17880. There are no restrictions on accessing this data, and researchers are encouraged to use it to verify the results presented in this article. For any further inquiries, please contact the main author, EA Fariz-Salinas, at edwin.fariz02@gmail.com.
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Acknowledgements
This work received financial support from Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León (UANL), The authors are thankful to the Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología (CONACYT) for partially supporting this research under the Sistema Nacional de Investigadores (SNI) program awarded to Ulrico Javier López-Chuken (CVU:37277) and Carlos Castillo-Zacarías (CVU:359310). Special thanks are extended to the Environmental Sciences Laboratory of the Instituto Tecnológico de Nuevo León. Carlos Castillo-Zacarías acknowledges the support of the Red Científica por Nuevo León.
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UJL-C and BL-Ro conceived the presented idea and supervised the project. GCGM-Áa and MEC-C verified the analytical methods. JCB-R, CC-Z, and CG-B supported all the technical details for the experiments performed. EAF-S performed the calculations, culture experiments, and HPLC test and wrote the manuscript. All the authors discussed the results and commented on the manuscript.
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Fariz-Salinas, E.A., Limón-Rodríguez, B., Beltrán-Rocha, J.C. et al. Effect of light stress on lutein production with associated phosphorus removal from a secondary effluent by the autoflocculating microalgae consortium BR-UANL-01. 3 Biotech 14, 23 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13205-023-03810-w
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13205-023-03810-w