Potency of Botryococcus braunii cultivated on palm oil mill effluent wastewater as a source of biofuel

Abstract

Indonesia is known as the largest oil palm producer in the world. However, along with the production, it generates wastes and pollution that caused the environmental problem in surrounding areas. Previous researchers reported that the high palm oil mill effluent (POME) concentration inhibited microalgae growth. However, the inhibition factor was not clearly explained by using kinetic model. This study presents kinetic models of Botryococcus braunii (B. braunii) cultivated on POME wastewater under different turbidity condition. Results showed that the growth model of Zwietering was closely suitable with experimental results. It was found that B. braunii was able to consume organic carbon from the POME wastewater on the logarithmic model. A modified kinetic model of Monod Haldane described the influence of turbidity and chemical oxygen demand on the cultivation. Turbidity of POME medium inhibited the growth rate at KI 3.578 and KII 179.472 NTU, respectively. The Lipid (39.9%), and carbohydrate (41.03%) were found in the biomass that could be utilized as biofuel source.

Sulfated exopolysaccharide production and nutrient removal by the marine diatom Phaeodactylum tricornutum growing on palm oil mill effluent

“…Presently, Asian coconut palm oil (CPO) production comprises 87.8% of the total world production of 57.32 million t. Within this region, Indonesia is currently known as the largest CPO producer, followed by Malaysia (Faostat 2018). Direct discharge of POME into the environment causes severe pollution due to its high organic matter content, high chemical oxygen demand (COD), biochemical oxygen demand (BOD), high nutrient levels, dark color, and strong smell (Nur et al 2017). To date, the conventional ponding system is the most common method for treating POME (Liew et al 2014).…”

Opportunities and Challenges of Microalgal Cultivation on Wastewater, with Special Focus on Palm Oil Mill Effluent and the Production of High Value Compounds

“…On the other hand, S. platensis could produce 100% fatty acid methyl ester (FAME) which is suitable as a source of biodiesel, while the FAME in D. salina and C. vulgaris was 14.77 and 37.38%, respectively. Nur et al [106] also recorded that B. braunii could produce 17.63 and 18.11 mg/L/day of lipid and carbohydrate with the addition of 250 mg/L COD substrate from digested POME. The cultivation was maintained at 5000 lx (24 h duration), 28 °C temperature, 0.15M salinity, and pH 6.8-7.2, The lipid contained 4.25, 37.29, and 2.1% of C16, C23, and C18, respectively.…”

“…Cultivation of microalgae on POME is challenging since the chemical oxygen demand (COD), biological oxygen demand (BOD) and macronutrient levels are high. In addition, the often dark color of POME inhibit light penetration causing light limitation for microalgal photosynthesis and growth [106].…”

“…Nur et al [106] et al [107] and Cho et al [25] used a filtration method to remove contaminants from wastewater which resulted in the increase of lipid productivity in Chlorella sp.. Autoclaving was applied by Shi et al [136] and Li et al [80]; this resulted in an increase in microalgal biomass yield and productivity. In contrast, Wang et al [155] obtained a lower microalgal biomass when the wastewater was pretreated using autoclaving.…”

Integrated Palm Oil Mill Effluent Treatment and CO2 Sequestration by Microalgae

“…Microalgae such as Chlamydomonas sp. UKM 6 (Ding et al 2016), Chlorella sorokiniana (Khalid et al 2018), Botryococcus brauni (Nur et al 2018) and mix culture of microalgae (Babua et al 2017) have been cultivated in POME. Furthermore, algae biomass produced were useful in food industry, medical, biofertilizer, animal feed, biodiesel and biogas production.…”