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Updated: Sep 22, 2025
Quantification of Heavy Metals and Other Inorganic Contaminants on the Productivity of Microalgae
Published on: July 10, 2015
A newly isolated microalga Chlamydomonas sp. YC to efficiently remove ammonium nitrogen of rare earth elements
Youcai Zhou1, Yongjin He2, Zhihua Zhou1
1College of Life Science, Fujian Normal University, Fuzhou, 350117, China.
Abstract:
The aim of this study was to establish a practical approach to remove ammonium nitrogen of rare earth elements (REEs) wastewater by an indigenous photoautotrophic microalga. Firstly, a new microalgal strain was successfully isolated from REEs wastewater and identified as Chlamydomonas sp. (named Chlamydomonas sp. YC). The obtained results showed that microalga could completely remove the NH4+-N of 10% REEs wastewater after 10 days of cultivation; however, the highest NH4+-N removal rate was attained by microalga to treat undiluted REEs wastewater. Then, three cultivation modes including batch, semi-continuous and continuous cultivation methods were developed to evaluate the ability of NH4+-N removal rate by this microalga to treat diluted (10%) and undiluted REEs wastewater. It was found that, Chlamydomonas sp. YC exhibited superior performance towards NH4+-N removal rates (32.75-61.05 mg/(L·d)) by semi-continuous and continuous processes for the treatments of 10% and undiluted REEs wastewater in comparison to the results (19.50-30.38 mg/(L·d) by batch process. Interestingly, under the same treatment conditions, among the three cultivation modes, microalga exhibited the highest removal rates of NH4+-N in undiluted REEs wastewater by semi-continuous (61.05 mg/(L·d)) and continuous (57.10 mg/(L·d) processes. In term of the biochemical analysis, microalgal biomass obtained from the wastewater treatment had 35.40-44.40% carbohydrate and 4.97-6.03% lipid, which could be potential ingredients for sustainable biofuels production. And the highest carbohydrate and lipid productivities attained by Chlamydomonas sp. YC in the continuous mode were 226.36 mg/(L·d) and 32.98 mg/(L·d), respectively. Taken together, the established processes mediated with Chlamydomonas sp. YC via continuous cultivation was the great promising approaches to efficiently remove NH4+-N of REEs wastewater and produce valuable biomass for sustainable and renewable biofuels in a simultaneous manner.
