Treatment of industrial wastewaters by microalgal bacterial flocs in sequencing batch reactors

Microalgal bacterial flocs in sequencing batch reactors (MaB-floc SBRs) represent a novel approach to wastewater treatment. In this approach, mechanical aeration is replaced by photosynthetic aeration and MaB-floc settling separates the treated wastewater from the produced biomass. However, its technical potential for industrial wastewaters needs to be shown. Therefore, wastewaters of aquaculture, manure treatment, food-processing and chemical industry were treated in MaB-floc SBRs. This treatment resulted in significantly different nutrient removal rates and effluent qualities among wastewaters. A high MaB-floc production was obtained for all wastewaters, ranging from 0.14 to 0.26 g total suspended solids L-reactor(1) day (1). A major advantage of MaB-flocs is the harvesting via a filter press with a large pore size of 200 mu m, resulting in MaB-floc recoveries of 79-99% and cakes containing 12-21% dry matter. These results may contribute to evolving MaB-floc SBRs as a valuable remediation strategy, especially for aquaculture and food-processing wastewaters. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.