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Updated: Mar 21, 2026

Cultivation of Green Microalgae in Bubble Column Photobioreactors and an Assay for Neutral Lipids
Published on: January 7, 2019
Microalgae cultivation as tertiary unit operation for treatment of pharmaceutical wastewater associated with lipid
Manupati Hemalatha1, S Venkata Mohan1
1Bioengineering and Environmental Sciences (BEES), CSIR-Indian Institute of Chemical Technology (CSIR-IICT), Hyderabad 500 007, India.
Abstract:
Microalgae based treatment was studied to polish sequential batch reactor (SBR) treated pharmaceutical wastewater under mixotrophic mode of operation with simultaneous biomass/lipid production. At the end of biomass growth phase (BGP), carbon removal efficiency was observed to be 73% along with good removal of nitrates (62%). Since microalgae assimilate nutrients from wastewater for growth, an increment in total biomass productivity (2.8g/l) was observed. Subjecting to nutrient stress phase (NSP), total lipid content of 17.2% with neutral lipids of 6.2% was observed under light condition. Contrarily, dark condition depicted total lipid content of 15.8% with neutral lipids constituting 6.5%. The nutrient stress in combination with light showed marked influence on the profile of saturated and unsaturated fatty acids. Integration of microalgae cultivation improves environmental sustainability and enables greener routes of biofuels and value added products synthesis in a biorefinery approach.
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