Investigation of biomass production, crude protein and starch content in laboratory wastewater treatment systems planted with Lemna minor and Lemna gibba

The use of duckweed-based wastewater treatment systems for producing biomass with high crude protein and starch content was investigated in the current study. For this reason, three lab-scale systems were used; System 1 was planted with Lemna minor, System 2 with Lemna gibba and System 3 with the combination of the two duckweeds. The studied duckweeds were cultivated using secondary treated wastewater as substrate (Phase A), in the presence of excess NH4-N (Phase B) and using water with no nutrients (Phase C). All systems achieved average NH4-N removal higher that 90%. The specific duckweeds growth rates and the specific duckweeds growth rates normalized to the area ranged between 0.14d(-1) and 8.9gm(-2)d(-1) (System 1) to 0.19d(-1) and 14.9gm(-2)d(-1)(System 3). The addition of NH4-N resulted in a significant increase of biomass protein content, reaching 44.4% in System 3, 41.9% in System 2 and 39.4% in System 1. The transfer of biomass in water containing no nutrients resulted in the gradual increment of the starch content up to the end of the experiment. The highest starch content was achieved for the combination of the two duckweeds (46.1%), followed by L. gibba (44.9%) and L. minor (43.9%).