Enhanced cultivation and lipid production of isolated microalgae strains using municipal wastewater

Cultivation of microalgae in wastewater is strongly related to the selection of suitable species for a specific type of wastewater. Thus, this study presented the cultivation of isolated microalgae strains, Acutodesmus obliquus CN01 and Desmodesmus maximus CN06 using municipal wastewater, along with Chlorella vulgaris NIES-1269 as the control species. The highest growth rate of 0.23/day was achieved by D. maximus CN06, while all species exhibited excellent nutrient removal efficiencies. High removal of NH3-N was demonstrated by all strains and complete total phosphorus removal was observed to be fastest in A. obliquus CN01 at 3.8 mg P/gDCW.day, followed by D. maximus CN06 and C. vulgaris NIES-1269, respectively. Lipid productivity was found to be highest in D. maximus CN06 at 3.43 mg/L.day which majorly consisted of hexadecanoic (C16:0) and oleic (C18:1) acids. The extracted fatty acids indicated good potential to be applied for biodiesel production. This study has shown that cultivation of isolated microalgae strain in municipal wastewater is beneficial for high nutrient removals and lipid accumulation. (c) 2022 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

Automated summary

This study investigated the cultivation of isolated microalgae strains using municipal wastewater and found that Desmodesmus maximus CN06 had the highest growth rate and efficient nutrient removal. Acutodesmus obliquus CN01 showed the fastest total phosphorus removal, while D. maximus CN06 had the highest lipid productivity and potential for biodiesel production.