Bioremediation by Microalgae: Current and Emerging Trends for Effluents Treatments for Value Addition of Waste Streams

Abstract

The development of anthropogenic activities has lead to an excessive disposal of wastes into natural waterbodies, thus affecting the quality of water and polluting the entire environment due to the hazardous chemicals and other nutrients present in the waste, thereby it has a negative impact on the aquatic ecosystems. To avoid these harmful impacts associated with the discharge of wastes into waterbodies, effective remediation processes are required to reduce nutrients like nitrogen, phosphorus, other organic chemicals and heavy metals concentrations in discharged effluents. Current technologies applied for nutrients removal tend to be complex, energy demanding and costly process. Therefore, cultivation of microalgae has appeared as an emerging alternative approach for removing pollutants and heavy metals present in the waterbodies. Biomass production in the alga depends on rapid utilization of the organic content and other nutrients present in the effluent and can be considered as an attractive and eco-friendly means for treating waste streams, other than removing the pollution load, algal cultivation adds value to the process by production of commercially valuable products such as fuels and various chemicals from biomass. This chapter addresses the recent developments and perspectives in bioremediation of waste streams by algae for removal of various pollutants for value addition of waste.