International Journal of Phytoremediation

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Microalgae based wastewater treatment: a shifting

paradigm for the developing nations

Nandini Moondra , Namrata D. Jariwala & Robin A. Christian

To cite this article: Nandini Moondra , Namrata D. Jariwala & Robin A. Christian (2020):
Microalgae based wastewater treatment: a shifting paradigm for the developing nations,
International Journal of Phytoremediation, DOI: 10.1080/15226514.2020.1857333

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/15226514.2020.1857333

Published online: 17 Dec 2020.

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INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PHYTOREMEDIATION
https://doi.org/10.1080/15226514.2020.1857333

Microalgae based wastewater treatment: a shifting paradigm for the

developing nations
Nandini Moondra, Namrata D. Jariwala, and Robin A. Christian
Civil Engineering Department, S.V. National Institute of Technology (SVNIT), Surat, India

ABSTRACT KEYWORDS
Decreased water quality in freshwater resources due to untreated or partially treated wastewater Chlorella vulgaris; municipal
disposal resulting in eutrophication has led to water scarcity. Hence, the present work was aimed wastewater; photosyn-
to determine the effectiveness of Chlorella vulgaris for municipal wastewater treatment in terms of thetic-aeration
various physico-chemical parameters and nutrient removal. Primary treated effluent was collected
from a sewage treatment plant as an influent for the study. Parameters analyzed during the lab-
scale batch study of 7 hours of detention time were pH, EC, TDS, TSS, TS, COD, phosphate, ammo-
nia, nitrate and DO. Removal efficiency reached 98.32, 97.26 and 84.71% for phosphate, ammonia
and COD, respectively, for non-filtered effluents. However, filtered effluent removal efficiency
reached 98.53, 98.63 and 89.41% for phosphate, ammonia and COD, respectively. The study
revealed that microalgal treatment, if incorporated in conventional wasteater treatment, can be a
solution to the limitations of the activated sludge process. It could be a promising technique for
low income and developing countries, which could efficiently reduce the effluent concentration to
much lesser than the desirable limits in an eco-friendly and cost-effective way.

Statement of novelty
Municipal wastewater treatment in most developing countries is confined to aerobic secondary
treatments, which are costly and are not efficient in removing nutrients from the treated effluents
before discharging and leading to the imbalance and eutrophication in the receiving bodies.
Hence in this study, an attempt was made to study the effectiveness of Chlorella vulgaris for
wastewater treatment at a detention time of 7 hours without any external aeration. The present
study revealed that microalgae have efficiently removed organics and nutrients to much lesser
than the desirable limit. Thus, if the Chlorella vulgaris is introduced in the wastewater treatment
system can reduce the nutrients and organics concentrations without the need for aeration, which
can be an energy-saving and cost-effective approach.

Introduction affects the aquatic ecosystem, mainly due to nitrogen and

Clean water is an essential component of living. The reduc-
tion in water quality would also lead to water scarcity, a sig-
nificant issue around the globe. The world will face a 40%
water deficit by 2030 due to the increasing water demand,
contaminated water bodies and lack of technologies to
reclaim the used water, a formidable challenge in societal
and economic development (Wang et al. 2016; Acien-
Fernandez et al. 2018). Water pollution is a combined result
of different anthropogenic activities like industrial effluents,
agricultural runoff, sewage discharge and unplanned urban-
ization (Pradhan et al. 2017). The increasing world popula-
tion, coupled with industrial growth, has given rise to a
continually growing demand for useful water and has led to
the increased release of pollutants into the environment
(Singh et al. 2019). The untreated/secondary treated waste-
water causes eutrophication, deoxygenated dead zones and
phosphorus (Correll 1998; Lewis et al. 2011).
The Activated Sludge Process (ASP), secondary treatment
systems in most developing countries, is hindered by the
variations in the sewage characteristics (Mennaa et al. 2019).
ASP is associated with a high cost of treatment
(Amenorfenyo et al. 2019). ASP is a highly energy-intensive
system (Mennaa et al. 2019) with an average total daily
power requirement of 187.5 kWh/MLD (Kumar and
Tortajada 2020) and consumes approximately 1 kWh electri-
city to degrade 1 kg BOD (Amenorfenyo et al. 2019). Also,
the generation of excessive sludge (Metcalf and Eddy 2003)
and emissions (Umamaheswari et al. 2020) make it econom-
ically and environmentally unreasonable (Zhang et al. 2014;
Amenorfenyo et al. 2019). Conventional treatment methods
face challenges in meeting stringent nutrient discharge
standards with high efficiency and low costs (Kumar et al.
2015; Whitton et al. 2016). In addition to these, each year,
wastewater treatment operations contribute 21.3 million

CONTACT Namrata D. Jariwala ndj@ced.svnit.ac.in Civil Engineering Department, Sardar Vallabhbhai National Institute of Technology (SVNIT), Surat,
Gujarat 395007, India.
ß 2020 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
2 N. MOONDRA ET AL.
metric tons of CO2 emissions (Holmes et al. 2020); CO2
alone contributes to 60% of greenhouse gas emissions
(Molazadeh et al. 2019). The excessive sludge generated after
the convention wastewater treatment has to be incinerated,
land-filled or used as compost depending on its characteris-
tics, which calls for an additional cost and energy require-
ment. In an ASP, the nitrification process increases energy
by 60–80% to maintain the DO in the system mechanically
(Molazadeh et al. 2019).
Thus, advanced eco-friendly technology for sustainable
wastewater treatment is highly required in the present scen-
ario. Microalgae-based wastewater treatment is the one that
can meet the new demand for improved wastewater treat-
ment (Singh and Pandey 2018). Coupling wastewater treat-
ment with algae cultivation has been an excellent
economically viable opportunity for water treatment and
algal biofuel production, as municipal wastewater is rich in
nutrients necessary for algal growth (Li et al. 2011; Lee et al.
2015). In the present study, an attempt was made to deter-
mine the effectiveness of Chlorella vulgaris in removing the
nutrients and other physico-chemical parameters from the
primary treated wastewater of an urban Sewage Treatment
Plant (STP) at 7 hours detention time in the absence of
external aeration to the desirable disposable limits.
Materials and methods
Chlorella vulgaris, the microalgal species used for wastewater
treatment, was provided by Phycolinc Technologies Pvt. Ltd,
a consultancy in Ahmedabad. A lab-scale batch study was
conducted in an open environment under natural condi-
tions. Wastewater used as an influent for the study was col-
lected from the outlet of a primary settling tank of an urban
STP of India. C. vulgaris was used in the present study
because of its characteristics features like (1) growth rate,
(2) fast nutrient removal rate, (3) strong adaptability to dif-
ferent types of wastewater and local climate. The previous
study also concluded that 30% of microalgal concentration
is optimum for nutrient and organic removal among the dif-
ferent microalgal concentrations taken under consideration
(Moondra et al. 2020). Hence in the present study, the STP
wastewater treatment was explicitly done with 30%
Figure 1. Setup for treatment of primary treated STP wastewater with 30% microalgae without external aeration (a) Start of experiment (b) When stirring is
stopped (c) After settling.
microalgal concentration. The study was conducted in a 2 L
glass beaker with a working volume of 1800 mL, with
540 mL (30%) Chlorella vulgaris and the remaining 1260 mL
was primarily treated STP wastewater. The volume used in
the experiment was selected considering the magnetic stirrer
used for mixing the sample during the study. Algae was
added only on the first day of the experiments, whereas, for
the remaining days of the study, only wastewater was added
each day to make the volume up to 1800 mL. The study was
conducted at 7 hours of detention time to simulate the
detention time of the secondary treatment unit of the STP.
Unlike at the STP, no external aeration was provided during
the study; however, the magnetic stirrer was used for mixing
microalgae and wastewater. Intermittent mixing was pro-
vided with 2.25 hours of mixing, followed by an hour of set-
tling, then again 2.25 hours of mixing followed by 1.5 hours
of settling. The experimental setup for the study is shown in
Figure 1. After the final settling, the supernatant was col-
lected for physico-chemical analysis. Parameters analyzed
during the study were Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD),
phosphate, ammonia, nitrate, Dissolved Oxygen (DO), pH,
Electrical Conductivity (EC), Total Dissolved Solids (TDS),
Total Solids (TS) and Total Suspended Solids (TSS) using
standard methods (APHA 2012). Each parameter was deter-
mined thrice for a sample, and the average was considered
for analysis. During the initial phase of the study, a light
greenish tint was observed in the effluent due to filamentous
algae. Hence the study was conducted on both non-filtered
(NF) and filtered (F) effluent with a coarse filter of size
4 5.5 mm. However, microalgal settablity increased with
time and color in effluent reduced to nil on visual
observation.
Results
During the study, the effectiveness of Chlorella vulgaris in
wastewater treatment was determined based on the removal
efficiency of the various parameters analyzed. Large varia-
tions were observed in the primary treated wastewater col-
lected from STP. The variation (mean and standard
deviation) in characteristics of domestic wastewater before
and after treatment with Chlorella vulgaris for various
 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PHYTOREMEDIATION 3

parameters except for pH (only mean), for both non-filtered After treatment, it was found that phosphate concentra-
(NF) and filtered (F) effluent, is tabulated in Table 1. tion lowered to 0.08 mg/L (98.32%) with an average removal
Microalgal treatment of the primary treated domestic waste- efficiency of 86.81% in non-filtered effluent, whereas for fil-
water was found to be effective with significant removal in tered effluent average removal efficiency was 87.61% with
different parameters analyzed at a short detention time of maximum removal of 98.53% (0.07 mg/L). Similarly, efficient
7 hours, unlike various literature which stated that urban removal was also observed in ammonia concentration with
wastewater treatment with Chlorella vulgaris is a time an average removal efficiency of 85.67%; concentration was
demanding process with detention time varying from 9 to lowered to 0.56 mg/L (97.26%) in non-filtered effluent, and
10 days (Kim et al. 2010; Caporgno et al. 2015; Shaker for filtered effluent removal efficiency reached to 98.63%
et al. 2015). (0.28 mg/L) with an average treatment efficiency of 89.01%.
Reductions in ammonia lead to an increase in nitrate con-
Table 1. Variation in the parameters before and after treatment for both centration after treatment due to the nitrification process as
non-filtered and filtered effluents. the DO concentration increased in the reactor. After treat-
Parameter Raw w/w 30% M (NF) 30%M (F) ment, nitrate concentration reached 5.26 and 5.67 mg/L,
pH 7.28 8.59 8.77 respectively, with an average increase of 1.67 and 1.73 mg/L,
EC (mS/cm) 1.28 ± 0.16 0.95 ± 0.22 0.92 ± 0.23
TS (mg/L) 1977.90 ± 291.53 1475.78 ± 295.71 1221.60 ± 298.84
both in non-filtered and filtered effluent. COD reductions
TDS (mg/L) 637.00 ± 79.90 476.80 ± 109.63 460.30 ± 111.63 were also quite promising during the study, as COD reduced
TSS (mg/L) 1334.98 ± 298.80 985.50 ± 229.86 748.18 ± 231.91 to 41.60 mg/L (84.71%) and 28.80 mg/L (89.41%) in non-
DO (mg/L) 0.19 ± 0.09 4.89 ± 0.94 4.89 ± 0.94
COD (mg/L) 279.82 ± 40.17 75.20 ± 16.12 61.12 ± 15.42 filtered and filtered effluents, respectively, with an average
Phosphate (mg/L) 4.23 ± 0.49 0.67 ± 0.78 0.63 ± 0 .75 removal efficiency of 72.75 and 77.88% in the case of efflu-
Ammonia (mg/L) 21.90 ± 1.66 3.21 ± 3.0 2.71 ± 3.07 ents. Variations observed in phosphate, ammonia, nitrate
Nitrate (mg/L) 0.01 ± 0.02 1.67 ± 1.00 1.73 ± 1.07
and COD during the study are shown in Figure 2(a–d).

Figure 2. Variation in the concentrations and removal efficiency of (a) Phosphate (b) Ammonia (c) Nitrate and (d) COD during the study.
4 N. MOONDRA ET AL.
Figure 3. Variation in the concentrations of (a) pH and (b) DO before and after treatment.
Microalgal treatment also led to an increase in pH and
DO concentration in the effluent. pH after the treatment
increased to 8.61 and 9.38 in non-filtered and filtered sam-
ples, respectively. Similarly, DO concentration increased
both in non-filtered and filtered effluent to 4.90 mg/L. An
increase in pH and DO during the study is shown in
Figure 3(a,b). An increase in DO concentration through
microalgae was much higher than that found in other
experimental setups where external aeration was provided
for wastewater treatment (not presented in the paper).
Huge variations were also found in solid concentrations
in the primary treated effluent of STP. However, after the
treatment with Chlorella vulgaris, it was found that microal-
gae not only efficiently removed nutrients and COD, but
significant reductions were also observed in solids (TS, TSS,
TDS) and EC concentrations. TS concentration in non-
filtered effluent was reduced to 1073.00 mg/L (44.30%), with
an average removal efficiency of 25.96%. In the case of fil-
tered effluent average removal efficiency was 37.97%, with a
minimum TS concentration of 890.00 mg/L (57.44%).
Maximum reductions were observed in TSS among different
solids analyzed. After treatment, TSS concentration was
reduced to 690.00 mg/L (51.16%), with an average removal
efficiency of 25.35% in the case of non-filtered samples. The
filtered effluent average removal efficiency for TSS concen-
tration was 43.21%, with a minimum concentration of
416.00 mg/L (68.65%). Maximum TDS removal observed in
non-filtered effluent was 46.42% (347.00 mg/L), with an
average efficiency of 26.78%. However, the filtered effluent
average removal efficiency was 28.24%, with the lowest TDS
concentration of 338.00 mg/L (48.71%). Reductions in EC
were similar to that of TDS. The lowest EC concentration
observed in non-filtered and filtered effluent during the
study was 0.70 mS/cm (46.43%) and 0.68 mS/cm (48.47%),
respectively. However, the average removal efficiency in EC
concentration for non-filtered and filtered effluents was
26.04% and 28.97%, respectively. Variations in
concentrations and removal efficiency for TS, TSS, TDS and
EC during the study are shown in Figure 4(a–d),
respectively.
Discussion
From the present study, it can be interpreted that Chlorella
vulgaris can effectively reduce the organic matter and
nutrients to much lesser than desirable limits if used in
municipal wastewater treatment plants. Besides, it would
reduce the solids and EC to a significant level. During the
study, no external aeration was provided to the wastewater;
hence, it reflects that this system can reduce energy con-
sumption (Mallick 2002) and operational cost to a greater
extent. Dissolved oxygen required for organics and nutrient
removal was released by microalgae with the uptake of CO2
as a carbon source for their growth (Verma and Srivastava
2018; Singh et al. 2019), resulting in a symbiotic relation-
ship. Microalgae can fix GHG emissions by assimilating
HCO3– via respiration and can fix approximately 183 tons
of CO2 per million liters of wastewater treated in algal sys-
tems. They also produce tons of algal biomass, which can be
used as bio-fertilizers and animal feed containing high pro-
tein and carbohydrates. In addition to this, 100–200 tons of
CO2 per million liters of wastewater are reduced because of
nitrogen assimilation through microalgae (Amenorfenyo
et al. 2019; Molazadeh et al. 2019). Algae can fix CO2 10–50
times faster than terrestrial plants, eliminating only 3–6%
CO2 (Molazadeh et al. 2019). Microalgae can effectively han-
dle the variations in wastewater characteristics and act as a
promising biological treatment system because of their meta-
bolic flexibility (Wollmann et al. 2019).
Mixing of wastewater and microalgae with the help of a
magnetic stirrer was performed, enhancing proper gas trans-
fer (Goncalves et al. 2017), nutrient dissolution and light
penetration (Khan et al. 2018), thus reduce temperature

Figure 4. Variation in the concentrations and removal efficiency of (a)TS (b)TSS (c)TDS and (d) EC during the study.
variation within the system and to prevent microalgae from
settling. Stirring using magnetic stirrer in the present study
enhanced the natural aeration process, unlike artificial aer-
ation in which the wastewater is in close contact with air
bubbles introduced through blowers or aerators.
The pH variation observed in the effluent was due to
photosynthetic CO2 assimilation (Daliry et al. 2017; Shahid
et al. 2020) and nitrification (Schumacher and Sekoulov
2003). High pH helped in the removal of suspended solids
through auto-flocculation, and also in phosphates reduction
via precipitation (Hoffmann 1998). Cellular uptake (Singh
and Pandey 2018), assimilation (Wang et al. 2017) and
photosynthesis (Cai et al. 2013) also contributed to phos-
phate removal. Phosphates are majorly used for energy
transfer, DNA and RNA generation in the algal cell (Hwang
et al. 2016). Ammonia was reduced in the study due to the
active transport and direct utilization by microalgal cells
(Han et al. 2019), nitrification and ammonia stripping (Lv
et al. 2017). Nitrogen uptake resulted in the formation of
peptides, proteins, vitamins, enzymes, chlorophyll, energy
transfer molecules (ATP, ADP) and genetic material (Han
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PHYTOREMEDIATION 5
et al. 2019). COD removal was slightly lesser than nutrients,
as an increase in nitrate concentration caused interference
in COD removal (Sawyer et al. 2003). COD removal was
mainly due to sufficient DO concentration, photosynthetic
effect (Wang et al. 2010) and low F/M ratio (Choi and Lee
2012). F/M ratio in the case of algal treatment ranges
between 0.05 and 0.1 (Choi and Lee 2012), which is similar
to an ASP system’s extended aeration process. A low F/M
ratio also leads to less sludge generation as the microorgan-
isms in the system are in the endogenous phase (Metcalf
and Eddy 2003).
Economic efficiency of ASP in terms of investment and
operational cost is high as highly mechanized systems are
involved in the treatment with higher energy consumption
leading to the total annual maintenance and operational cost
of approximately 353.02 lacs Rs/MLD (Kumar and Tortajada
2020). Majorly of the operational cost is contributed by the
blowers used for maintaining DO in the wastewater treat-
ment system. Phycoremediation can significantly reduce
operational and maintenance costs of secondary treatment
as microalgae are self-sufficient in DO generation higher
6 N. MOONDRA ET AL.
than required in much lesser detention time and can reduce
nutrients if incorporated in the conventional treatment sys-
tem with three times lesser capital cost (Chalivendra 2004).
Sludge generation in the microalgal treatment is negligible
compared to the conventional system; hence there is no
additional cost and energy requirement for sludge treatment
and disposal. The study revealed that microalgae reduce the
contaminations in wastewater by direct uptake or/and trans-
formation. Secondly, the system’s purification performance
was improved compared to the conventional system as more
than the required amount of DO was produced through
photosynthesis, thus reducing the total cost of treatment.
Thus, while implementing this technique in any STP,
there could be two possibilities, i.e., either reducing the
treatment units or introducing algae at the initial stage, i.e.,
might be the preliminary/primary depending on the practice
done in the case of respective STP. Secondly, if the microal-
gae are introduced in the secondary units, the amount of
microalgae added can be reduced depending on the primary
treated wastewater concentration. In both the cases microal-
gal treatment would be ecofriendly and economical in long
run. In addition to this, wastewater is a growth medium for
the microalgae; hence larger the volume of wastewater, the
more will be the production of algae and might lead to an
enormous amount of biofuels and manure as an
end product.
Conclusions
Algae have shown immense potential to remediate organic
pollutants and nutrients during the study. Microalgae alone
lead to a reduction of approximately 98% of nutrients and
85% of COD from primary treated municipal wastewater
effluent at 7 hours of detention time even at varying concen-
trations of influent in the absence of external aeration.
Hence, microalgal wastewater treatment significantly impacts
cost-effectiveness and no additional sludge treatment and
greenhouse gas emissions. It also forms a sustainable waste-
water treatment process by reducing energy requirement as
DO concentration was high in effluents (no external aer-
ation requirement). Phycoremediation can be an eco-
friendly, effective and economical solution to restore our
freshwater bodies, especially in developing countries during
the low-carbon era, emphasizing energy-saving nutrient
recycling wastewater treatment processes with low CO2 gen-
eration. Even effluent of the phycoremediation system when
discharged into the receiving bodies will not deteriorate
their water quality as they would be enriched with high DO
concentration.
Acknowledgment
The authors are thankful to Phycolinc Technologies Pvt. Ltd for pro-
viding substantial intellectual inputs during the study. The authors also
wish to thank all the technical and non-technical staff of the institute
for providing their valuable suggestions and comments during
the study.
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