Sustainable treatment potential of mixed algal consortia for domestic waste water: Growth and mixotrophy

Abstract

The increasing levels of generation of nutrient-rich waste water pose serious challenge. Conventional biological and chemical methods of waste water treatment have failed in meeting sustainability challenges. Naturally occurring mixed algal species reared in mixotrophic growth modes have been deployed to recover nutrients (N and P) from domestic wastewater after anaerobic digestion. In this paper, we present the results pertaining to growth and mixotrophy. Pilot-scale operation shows that the cultivation methods adopted and the use of naturally selected species lead to a tendency among these species to clump at certain stages of growth that in turn float or settle rapidly making algal harvest and thereby the nutrient recovery processes energy efficient. The highest settling rate was found to be 6.37 ± 1.6 g/m2/d. Mixotrophy was seen to contribute 15 – 24 % across the various algal consortia in wastewater (polyculture)