Title:
Mass Culture of Chlorella Pyrenoidosa Using Secondarily Treated Sewage. Possibility of Biofuels Production
Author(s):
Sánchez, S., Órpez, R., Hodaifa, H., Valdivía, M., Martínez, M.E.
Document(s):
Paper
Poster
Abstract:
It is generally recognized that microalgae play an important role in self-purification of natural waters. The use of microalgae for tertiary wastewater treatment, CO2 elimination, and biomass production for sustainable valuable sources as biofuels, pharmaceuticals, health foods, carotenoids, dyes, fine chemicals, and other applications is a feasible option. Microalgae have a vast industrial and economic potential. The secondarily treated sewages contained ammonium, nitrates, phosphates, potassium salts, organic matter, inorganic carbon and other micronutrients. The values of conductivity (978 µS/cm), turbidity (3.97 FTU), pH (7.6), and chemical oxygen demand (COD=49.7 mg O2/dm3) were appropriate for the microalgae growth. This wastewater can be used as nutrients to produce an algal biomass with a biochemical composition rich in lipids. Chlorella pyrenoidosa is a green unicellular algal that can produce a substantial amount of lipids. For that, experiments at two scale were performed, laboratory and mini-plant scales. First at lab level, experiments using a camera coupled to a rotary orbital were performed, with agitation speed of 150 rpm, 298.15 K and under a light-dark cycle (12 h illumination per day). At mini-plant scale, a bubble column photobioreactor in natural conditions was used. The temperature varied in the range 287.15-295.15 K., the pH in the interval 7.78-9.05, and an air flow of 1 v/v/min was supplied. In all cultures, both laboratory and mini-plant level, was added a concentration of 1 mg/dm3 of chloramphenicol, allowing minimize bacterial contamination. Fundamentally, this study tries to evaluate the growth kinetics (maximum specific growth rate, µm, and volumetric biomass productivity, Pb) as well as the formation of lipids in the biomass formed. In the bubble column photobioreactor and under natural conditions, the highest values of µm and Pb were 0.076 d-1 and 0.14 10-3 g/dm3h, respectively. It is aimed at undertaking the separation of lipids, valuating the possibility of transforming lipid fraction into biodiesel.
Keywords:
biodiesel, microalgae, wastewater, lipids, Chlorella Pyrenoidosa
Topic:
Biomass resources
Subtopic:
Algae production systems
Event:
21st European Biomass Conference and Exhibition
Session:
1AV.1.42
Pages:
211 - 214
ISBN:
978-88-89407-53-0
Paper DOI:
10.5071/21stEUBCE2013-1AV.1.42
Price:
FREE
