Investigation of the Phycoremediation Potential of Freshwater Green Algae Golenkinia radiata for Municipal Wastewater

Abstract

Recent developments in the removal of pollutants from wastewater show that phycoremediation to wastewater treatment and reuse wastewater may provide sustainable biosolutions. This work investigated the performance of the green microalgae Golenkinia radiata Chodat 1984 (Chlorophyceae) in terms of N, P, and COD removal at different treatment stages of municipal wastewater, reusability of remediated wastewater and wastewater-based biomass production. Water samples were taken from different wastewater units (presettling basin effluent, active sludge basin effluent, and discharge channel) of a municipal wastewater treatment plant (İzmir, Turkey). In the 7-day experiments, Chl-a, Chl-b, DO, pH, and T (°C) were also measured alongside the pollutant analyses. The results in Chl-a (1803 ± 75.9 µg L−1) and biomass yield (7.66 ± 0.05 g L−1) in the primary effluent (P) were quite impressive. Additionally, the results showed that the correlation between the increase in Chl-a and the residual concentrations of pollutants was remarkable. NH4-N, NO3-N, NO2-N, PO4-P, and COD treatment efficiencies were in the ranges of (74.6–83.0%), (15.35–70.4%), (0.00–47.22%), (80.67–86.27%), and (77.22–87.53%), respectively. The final concentrations of pollutants (E) were found to comply with EU legislation. The results also reveal that green microalgae G. radiata may be a strong candidate for microalgae-based wastewater treatment.

Municipal Wastewater Effects on the Performance of Nutrient Removal, and Lipid, Carbohydrate, and Protein Productivity of Blue-Green Algae Chroococcus turgidus

“…For the same wastewater in all experimental groups, the Chl-b increase of the strain was similarly parallel to the Chl-a increase (Figure 1). As in this study, the stability of the Chl-a/Chl-b ratio shows that the photosynthetic apparatus of the species function was healthy [22]. The lowest amount of Chl-a obtained after the 7-day culture period was obtained from experimental group E with 107.65 ± 1.75 µgL −1 (Table 1).…”

“…Trial groups inoculated with C. turgidus strain started to increase rapidly due to photosynthetic activity towards the peak value in DO as soon as the batch system test started, and at the end of the 1st day reached its highest value (approximately 9.69 mgL −1 ) by the E trial. A decrease in DO values was observed for all trials in the range of 8.67-8.98 mgL −1 Nitrogen is one of the essential nutrients that regulates the growth and biochemical content (protein, lipid and carbohydrate) of microalgae [22]. Most microalgae can assim-ilate different forms of nitrogen, namely NO 3 , NO 2 , NH 4 and urea, but prefer NH 4 -N as a nitrogen source because less energy is required for cellular uptake [4,70].…”

“…However, most cyanobacteria-based WWT research has concentrated on traditional cyanobacteria genera such as Arthrospira, Anabaena, Oscillatoria, and Nostoc [17,21]; the number of microalgae species known to perform the highest is still very limited. Therefore, the first of the main steps towards goals such as determining the best WWT, biofuel production, or valuable metabolite extraction, is to discover promising new microalgae species [22].…”

Short-Term Toxicity of ZnO Nanoparticles on Microalgae at Different Initial Nutrient Concentrations

“…Chlorococcum sp. is used in various industries, such as food, aquaculture, pharmaceutical, wastewater treatment, and biofuel production [18][19][20][21][22].…”

Exploring the Potential of Green Microalgae-Based Phycoremediation Treated Wastewater for Sustainable Concrete Production

“…Notably, the treatment also resulted in the removal of nutrients and pollutants, reaching up to 80% removal from the sampled wastewater. In a recent study conducted by Kemal Simsek, the research focused on evaluating the efficacy of the native green microalgae Golenkinia radiata Chodat, 1984 (Chlorophyceae, Chlorophyta) in removing N, P, and COD from municipal wastewater [10]. The study's findings suggest that this microalgae species could potentially serve as a robust candidate for both wastewater treatment and the production of biomass from wastewater, based on the obtained results.…”