Effect of organic carbon to nitrogen ratio in wastewater on growth, nutrient uptake and lipid accumulation of a mixotrophic microalgae Chlorella sp.

This study investigated the biomass/lipid production, nutrient removal and fatty acid composition of an isolated mixotrophic microalga (Chlorella sp. G-9) cultured in simulated wastewater with different TOC/TN ratio. As the TOC/TN ratio of wastewater increased from 0 to 24, the growth rate of Chlorella sp. G-9 increased gradually, but did not increase further at 30. Nutrient removal was related to microalgae growth. In the wastewater with TOC/TN ratio of 24 and 30, 99.58% and 99.61% nitrogen was removed, respectively. In conditions of initial TOC/TN ratios of 24 and 30, Chlorella sp. G-9 could accumulate lipid as high as 35.3% and 36.5%, respectively. The corresponding lipid productivities were 34.2 and 32.6 mg L-1 d-1, respectively, which were 13.7 and 13.0 times higher than those in photoautotrophic condition. Increasing the initial TOC/TN ratio of the wastewater could slightly increase the saturated degree in fatty acid, thereby improving the stability of biodiesel.

Concentrated microalgae cultivation in treated sewage by membrane photobioreactor operated in batch flow mode.

This study investigated the microalgae biomass production and nutrients removal efficiency from treated sewage by newly developed membrane photobioreactor in which Chlorella vulgaris was cultured in batch flow mode. Its performance was compared with conventional photobioreactor. The results show that the volumetric microalgae productivity was 39.93 and 10.36 mg L(-1)d(-1) in membrane photobioreactor and conventional photobioreactor, respectively. The nutrients removal rate in membrane photobioreactor was 4.13 mg N L(-1)d(-1) and 0.43 mg P L(-1)d(-1), which was obviously higher than that in conventional photobioreactor (0.59 mg N L(-1)d(-1) and 0.08 mg P L(-1)d(-1)). The better performance of membrane photobioreactor was due to the submerged membrane module in the reactor which acted as a solid-liquid separator and thereby enabled the reactor to operate with higher supply flow rate of cultivation medium. Moreover, in the outflow stage of the membrane photobioreactor, the microalgae culture liquor in the reactor could be further concentrated.

[Treatment characteristics of saline domestic wastewater by constructed wetland].

A series of experiments were conducted to evaluate the feasibility of using constructed wetland (CW) to remove pollutants from saline domestic sewage. The experimental results indicated that the effects of salinity on the contaminant removal were insignificant when the influent salinities of the CWs were less than or equal to 1.5%. For the influent salinity of 0%, 0.5%, 1.0% and 1.5%, the average removal rates of the CWs were found to be above 68.3% for COD and above 66.1% for NH4(+) -N. When the influent salinity was increased to 2.0%, the individual numbers of microorganisms in the CW reduced obviously. It was similar to the change of the soil enzyme activity in the CW. Then the removal efficiency of the CW also dropped significantly. The average removal rate of COD and NH4(+) -N dropped to 52.9% and 50.3%, respectively. The effects of HRT on the treatment performance of CW under the saline condition of 1.5% were also investigated in this study. And the results showed that nitrogen removal was more greatly affected by HRT than organic matter removal. The NH4(+) -N removal efficiency in CW decreased from 65.1% -78.2% to 47.1% when the HRT of the CW varied from 3-5 d to 2 d.