Cultivation of chlorella vulgaris in dairy wastewater pretreated by UV irradiation and sodium hypochlorite

Abstract

There is potential in the utilization of microalgae for the purification of wastewater as well as recycling the resource in the wastewater to produce biodiesel. The large-scale cultivation of microalgae requires pretreatment of the wastewater to eliminate bacteria and protozoa. This procedure is costly and complex. In this study, two methods of pretreatment, UV irradiation, and sodium hypochlorite (NaClO), in various doses and concentrations, were tested in the dairy wastewater. Combining the efficiency of biodiesel production, we proposed to treat the dairy wastewater with NaClO in the concentration of 30 ppm. In this condition, The highest biomass productivity and lipid productivity of Chlorella vulgaris reached 0.450 g L-1 day-1 and 51 mg L -1 day-1 after a 4-day cultivation in the dairy wastewater, respectively. © 2013 Springer Science+Business Media New York.