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Low-cost cultivation of Scenedesmus sp. with filtered anaerobically digested piggery wastewater: biofuel production and pollutant remediation

  • 1st International Coastal Biology Congress, Yantai, China
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Abstract

A laboratory study was conducted on biomass and lipid production by Scenedesmus sp. and the removal of total nitrogen (TN) and total phosphorus (TP) from filtered anaerobically digested piggery wastewater. The dry weight (DW), lipid content and productivity, total nitrogen, and total phosphorus removal rate were assessed in five media: modified soil extract (MSE) medium, 5 % anaerobic digested wastewater (ADWW), 10 % ADWW, 15 % ADWW, and 5 % ADWW supplemented with NaNO3. The highest biomass productivity appeared in the 15 % ADWW group, which was 20.4 % higher than MSE group. The highest lipid content was found in the 5 % ADWW group (31.60 %), while the highest lipid productivity was in the 10 % ADWW group (27.01 mg L−1 day−1). Compared with the 5 % ADWW group, the 5 % ADWW group supplemented with NaNO3 had a similar biomass amount but lower lipid content and productivity. The fatty acids percentage of Scenedesmus sp. showed a slight difference in different media, but with the four dominant fatty acids (C16:0, C18:1, C18:2, C18:3) accounting for 87 % of the total fatty acids, suggests that Scenedesmus sp. in ADWW medium was no different than MSE in terms of lipid composition and content. TN removal rates were 82.85, 82.51, 85.85, 91.28, and 78.71 % in groups 1 to 5, and TP removal rates were 53.05, 88.53, 87.77, 88.72, and 80.64 %. Our experiment also shows the feasibility of using ADWW as a substitute of all the elements of MSE medium except for carbon, which would significantly reduce the costs of microalgal culture.

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Acknowledgments

This work was financially supported by the Ocean Public Welfare Scientific Research Project (201305018-3), the National Science and Technology Support Program (2013BAD10B04-1), and the Guangdong Ocean Innovative Demonstration Area of Economic Development Project (GD2012-D01-002).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Tropical Marine Bio-resources and Ecology, Guangdong Key Laboratory of Marine Materia Medica, South China Sea Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou, 510301, China

    Qikun Jia, Wenzhou Xiang, Fangfang Yang, Qunju Hu, Mingxing Tang, Chenghao Chen, Guanghua Wang, Shikun Dai, Hualian Wu & Houbo Wu

  2. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China

    Qikun Jia, Fangfang Yang, Qunju Hu, Mingxing Tang & Chenghao Chen

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  1. Qikun Jia
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Jia, Q., Xiang, W., Yang, F. et al. Low-cost cultivation of Scenedesmus sp. with filtered anaerobically digested piggery wastewater: biofuel production and pollutant remediation. J Appl Phycol 28, 727–736 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10811-015-0610-9

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