The viability of algal cells immobilized on screens and starved in a water-saturated air stream was studied at the laboratory scale. This new process for wastewater biotreatment has been developed using immobilized cells, which were starved in air, to obtain a high rate of nutrient removal. A unicellular green microalgae, Scenedesmus bicellularis, was isolated from secondary decantation tanks at an urban wastewater treatment plant and grown in a synthetic medium for 12 days. The cells were then concentrated by centrifugation and immobilized on alginate screens. The screens were then inserted in a photochamber saturated at 100% relative humidity and subjected to a photoperiod of 16 h in the light and 8 h in the dark, with an illumination of 150 muE m(-2) s(-1) provided by fluorescent lamps. After 48 h of nutrient starvation, the immobilized cells were used for the removal of ammonium and orthophosphate from a synthetic secondary wastewater effluent in a plexiglass reactor. During the sequential operation of starvation followed by incubation in the presence of nutrients, fast growth of viable cells in the gel matrix was obtained and there was no appreciable decay of chlorophyll a or cell activity. When these immobilized and starved cells were incubated in wastewater, ammonium (NH(4) (+)) and orthophosphate (PO(4) (3-)) ions were quickly taken up from medium. After three successive 2-h exposures to wastewater, immobilized algal cells were freed by dissolving the Ca-alginate with phosphate as 0.2 M Na(3)PO(4) and resuspended in fresh culture medium. Results indicate that free cells transferred to rich medium remained viable, but the growth rate revealed that the viable cells decreased their culturability. (c) 1995 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

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Immobilization appears to be one of the best techniques to separate physically micro-algal cells from their culture medium for the purpose of algal tertiary wastewater treatment. High operation costs and other drawbacks of largescale physico-chemical methods of harvest led to a comparative study of biotreatment systems. Before treatment began, Scenedesmus bicellularis cells were conditioned (starved) under four different sets of conditions: 1) nonimmobilized cells with air bubbling (NCA); 2) cells immobilized in alginate beads (CBW) and 3) cells immobilized on alginate screens (CSW), all conditioned in synthetic culture medium depleted in N and P; 4) cells immobilized on alginate screens but conditioned in air at 100% relative humidity (CSA). Starvation was started under a light:dark photoperiod of 16:8 h. Starved cells were then used to treat wastewater for a 2-h period. The performance of each system was evaluated by determination of residual NH4-N and phosphate ions and by growth (dry weight, total chlorophyll, cell count, protein content). We then tested the capacity of microalgae immobilized on screens to eliminate N and P from a secondary municipal wastewater effluent and examined the influence of temperature and starvation. The quality of treated effluents was improved considerably with the system using CSA or CSW model. For CSA model, the protein content was 22.4 pg cell -' compared to 12.9, 9.5, 9.1 pg cell -' for NCA, CBW and CSW models, respectively. The CBW and CSW models were efficient for chlorophyll synthesis. The residual ammonium content in natural wastewater after 2 h of treatment with CSA model was 39% at 6±2 "C and reached 100% removal at 18±2 C. With the first 2 h, the removal of orthophosphate was inferior (53%) at 6+2 C, but 88 to 100% at 18+2 "C depending on starvation times. Long starvation times (72 or 96 h) caused damage to cells and uptake of nutrients was lower than with 54 h starvation. This work demonstrates that by using immobilization on screens, removal of nutrients from wastewater was higher than with conventional biological tertiary wastewater treatments (free cells or bead-shaped alginate particles).

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