Cultivation of Chlorella vulgaris on anaerobically digested swine manure with daily recycling of the post-harvest culture broth.

In this work, a cultivation system with daily recycling of the post-harvest culture broth was set up and performed in order to reuse the water and nutrients in pretreated anaerobically digested swine manure, which was used as media to cultivate Chlorella vulgaris (UTEX 2714) at different recycling ratios. Results showed that the alga grew well in the system with an accumulative algal biomass and productivity of 1.68-3.47g/L and 234.1-532.2mg/L/d, respectively, at the end of the cultivation. Additionally, chemical compositions in this alga varied with the change of recycling ratios, and the highest productivities of carbohydrate, protein and lipids (76.4, 257.2 and 183.7mg/L/d, respectively) were obtained in the system with a recycling ratio of 1/4 or 1/6. Fatty acid profiles indicated that this alga could be used as a good-quality biodiesel feedstock with a biodiesel productivity of 9.65-40.1mg/L/d.

Growing Chlorella vulgaris on thermophilic anaerobic digestion swine manure for nutrient removal and biomass production.

Liquid swine manure was subjected to thermophilic anaerobic digestion, ammonia stripping and centrifugation in order to increase the available carbon sources and decrease the ammonia concentration and turbidity. Chlorella vulgaris (UTEX 2714) was grown on minimally diluted (2×, 3× and 4×) autoclaved and non-autoclaved pretreated anaerobic digestion swine manure (PADSM) in a batch-culture system for 7days. Results showed that C. vulgaris (UTEX 2714) grew best on 3× PADSM media, and effectively removed NH4+-N, TN, TP and COD by 98.5-99.8%, 49.2-55.4%, 20.0-29.7%, 31.2-34.0% and 99.8-99.9%, 67.4-70.8%, 49.3-54.4%, 73.6-78.7% in differently diluted autoclaved and non-autoclaved PADSM, respectively. Results of chemical compositions indicated that contents of pigment, carbohydrate, protein and lipid in C. vulgaris (UTEX 2714) changed with the culture conditions. Moreover, its fatty acid profiles suggested that this alga could be used as animal feed if cultivated in autoclaved PADSM or as good-quality biodiesel feedstock if cultivated in non-autoclaved PADSM.