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Wastewater treatment using Scenedesmus almeriensis: effect of operational conditions on the composition of the microalgae-bacteria consortia

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Abstract

Primary urban wastewater was treated in outdoor raceways using microalgae-bacteria consortia dominated by Scenedesmus almeriensis. The current study aimed at assessing the effect of operational conditions, namely, culture depth and dilution rate, on the following: (i) biomass productivity, (ii) the nutrient removal capacity and (iii) the composition of the microalgae-bacteria consortium and the presence of unwanted microorganisms. Optimum dilution rates to process large quantities of wastewater during summer and achieve high biomass productivities were 0.3–0.5 day−1. Under the optimum operational conditions, nitrogen and phosphorus removal rates were higher than 90% while removal of chemical oxygen demand was 70%. Operating at different culture depths had a striking effect on the composition of the microalgae-bacteria consortium. The relative abundance of nitrifiers increased with culture depth and was minimised at 0.05 m: larger culture depths led to enhanced nitrifying activity and therefore to nitrate production and accumulation in the system. Results demonstrate the potential of microalgae-based wastewater treatment processes and the importance of selecting suitable operational conditions to maximise both, biomass production and nutrient removal by minimising the occurrence of nitrifying bacteria.

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Data availability

Data from the SABANA Project are available at http://www2.ual.es/sa-347 bana/data-centre-2/.

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Acknowledgements

Authors would like to thank the Bioinformatics Core Facility at PTP Science Park (Lodi, Italy) for their technical assistance and the Andalucian Institute of Agricultural and Fisheries Research and Training (IFAPA) in Almería, Spain.

Funding

This work forms part of the SABANA Project, funded by the European Union's Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme (Grant # 727874) and the PURASOL project, funded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Industry (CTQ2017-84006-C3-3-R). T. Lafarga thanks the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation, and Universities (IJC2018-035287-I) and the BBVA Foundation for the Leonardo 2020 Grant for Researchers and Cultural Creators. A. Sanchez-Zurano is in receipt of a FPU grant awarded by the Spanish Ministry of Education (FPU16/05996).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Almería, 04120, Almería, Spain

    Ana Sánchez-Zurano, Tomás Lafarga, María del Mar Morales-Amaral, Cintia Gómez-Serrano, José María Fernández-Sevilla, Francisco Gabriel Acién-Fernández & Emilio Molina-Grima

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  1. Ana Sánchez-Zurano
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  2. Tomás Lafarga
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  3. María del Mar Morales-Amaral
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  6. Francisco Gabriel Acién-Fernández
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  7. Emilio Molina-Grima
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Contributions

A. Sánchez-Zurano: investigation, formal analysis, writing—original draft; T. Lafarga: formal analysis, visualisation, writing—original draft; M.M. Morales-Amaral: investigation; C. Gómez-Serrano: investigation, supervision; J.M. Fernández-Sevilla: conceptualisation, supervision, writing—review and editing; F.G. Acién-Fernández: supervision, conceptualisation, writing—review and editing, funding acquisition; E. Molina-Grima: conceptualisation, supervision, writing—review and editing.

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Correspondence to Tomás Lafarga.

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Sánchez-Zurano, A., Lafarga, T., Morales-Amaral, M.d. et al. Wastewater treatment using Scenedesmus almeriensis: effect of operational conditions on the composition of the microalgae-bacteria consortia. J Appl Phycol 33, 3885–3897 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10811-021-02600-2

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