Domestic Wastewater Treatment Using Various Microalgae for Lipid Production
Evi Siti Sofiyah1, Iva Yenis Septiariva2, I Wayan Koko Suryawan1, *
1Faculty of Infrastructure Planning, Department of Environmental Engineering, Universitas Pertamina, Jakarta 12220, Indonesia
2Faculty of Engineering, Department of Civil Engineering, Universitas Sebelas Maret, Surakarta 57126, Indonesia
ABSTRACT
Domestic wastewater treatment is performed conventionally by biological treatment. Biological treatment that using mixed culture can produce biomass in the form of biological sludge. The sludge should be adequately managed to reduce the impact on the environment. One way to handle this problem is by replacing mixed culture with biomass from microalgae. The purpose of this research is to determine the process of domestic wastewater treatment with several types of microalgaebased on COD, BOD, NH3-N, and lipid values. The type of microalgae used in this study was Spirulina sp., Nannochloropsis sp., Chlorella sp., and a mixture of microalgae. The processing COD, BOD, and NH3-N with several types of microalgae are varied from 80%, 95%, and 82%. The yield produced from a single algae species can produce higher lipids compared to a mixture of microalgae. Lipid content in Spirulina sp.Nannochloropsis sp.,Chlorella sp., are 11.5%, 13.8%, and 24.1%, while the microalgae mixture produced a lipid content of 14.2%.
Keywords
Microalgae; Domestic Wastewater; Biological Wastewater Treatment; Lipid
Introduction
Microalgae cultivation has the potential to produce biofuel, nutraceuticals, cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, and feed. Microalgae cultivation technology is associated with the type design and system configuration of open or closed cultivation and identification of operating conditions that lead to the microalgae growth performance. Biofuel production from microalgae requires a large amount of microalgae biomass. The factors affecting microalgae cultivation and biofuel production are carbon source, nitrogen source, lighting, temperature, pH, salinity, and agitation/stirring. A carbon source is usually an essential factor for microalgae growth. Generally, microalgae can grow by utilizing carbon dioxide and light energy to be stored and converted to ADP, NADP, ATP, and NADPH [1, 2]. Nitrogen is also considered an important energy source in the cultivation and an expensive source of nutrients. Wastewater, especially domestic wastewater, has nitrogen sources with high nitrogen, ammonia, and nitrate [3, 4]. The high ammonia in the water body can cause an explosion of the microalgae population [5, 6].
The type of light source is known as the essential factor that affects the growth of microalgae [7], light intensity is also critical to microalgae growth [8, 9]. The reactor for the cultivation usually uses an open system or a closed system [10]. Some countries, such as the United States and Israel, currently use microalgae as waste to energy technology [10]. The wastewater complexity makes it necessary to have a hybrid system, then integrated waste treatment is needed to reduce the pollutants [11, 12]. This domestic scale microalgae-based domestic wastewater treatment is adjusted to the Peraturan Menteri Lingkungan Hidup Dan KehutananRepublik Indonesia Number P.16/MENLHK/SETJEN/KUM.1/4/2019 for domestic wastewater quality standard water body is safe to use and does not pollute the environment [13].
In Indonesia, the use of microalgae is not as much as expected, especially for cultivation and energy conversion. Microalgae cultivation has started to develop for certain products, especially for food and cosmetics. Wastewater treatment using a microalgae system is still not widely applied [14]. The purpose of the research is divided into two stages: the cultivation of several types of microalgae using laboratory-scale photobioreactor technology, the growth rate of specific microalgae, and the removal of pollutants in wastewater in the form of dissolved COD, BOD, and Ammonia-N (NH3-N) will be known. With the control parameter in the form of pH.
The researcher can then determine the potential energy produced by microalgae that have been cultivated as total suspended solid and lipid.
Material and Method Reactor Configuration and Experiment Set-Up
The reactor used for this experiment is a glass reactor with a 2.5 L volume of water.
Wastewater used in microalgae growing media is wastewater from housing complexes in Jakarta.
For lighting, the researcher using a UVA-UVB lamp with radiation time followed the reactor running time. CO2 is supplied using an aerator with an airflow rate of 1.5 liters per minute. The processing time is 48 hours.
Microalgae Seed
The microalgae seed was obtained from the farmer with microalgae Chorella sp., Spirulina sp., and Nannochloropsis sp. The researcher also used the Cisadane River's microalgae for the control parameter, which produces abundant microalgae. The Cisadane River is one of the largest rivers in West Java. Cisadane River has a length of 140 km, extends from Bogor Regency, Bogor City, Tangerang Regency, Tangerang City, to the Java Sea. The plankton found in the Cisadane River consists of 19 phytoplankton species and ten zooplankton species [15]. Other studies also mention 11 microalgae from the Bacillariophycae class and seven microalgae from Chlorophycae class in the Cisadane River [16].
Analysis of Pollutant Parameters and Lipid Yield
The COD measurement is performed by following the closed reflux test method with spectrophotometry based on the Indonesian National Standard 6989.2:2009. The BOD5
measurement is using the Winkler titration method based on SNI 6989.72: 2009. Ammonia-N (NH3-N) analysis procedure. Commonly used in Indonesia are based on SNI 06-6989.30-2005.
Lipid content testing was performed by using the method of methanol-chloroform referring to [17].
Result and Discussion Removal of Pollutant Parameter
Measurement of effluent water quality in batches at 48 hours of contact time showed all pollutant parameters had met the Effluent Quality Standards of domestic wastewater quality (Table 1).
This shows a huge opportunity to use microalgae as domestic wastewater treatment in reducing pollutant parameters. Spirulina sp. cultivation technique by the anaerobic method can remove COD up to 80% and BOD up to 95% [18]. These results are better than the other techniques that only removed COD and BOD up to 74.4% and 82%. In the condition where the pollutant is high,
Spirulina sp.'s removal capability with anaerobically digested distillery wastewater (ADDW) cultivation techniques up to 15–23% [19]. Cultivation in 10% treated palm oil mill effluent (TPOME) showed a value of 55% within nine days [20]. Red Light Emitting Diod (LED) indicates the higher COD removal valuenNannochloropsis sp., 75.95±11.817% [21]. While other studies using a mixture of Domestic-industrial Wastewater and Chorella sp. media showed an efficiency of 90.8% [22]. The other studies have shown that Chorellasp can remove COD up to 83% [23]. The use of microalgae from the Cisadane River in the form of mixtures of microalgae removed the COD at the highest value of 81.2%. Microalgae cultivated from boezem water in Surabaya applied in wastewater treatment can only remove COD up to 49% with natural lighting [24].
Table 1. Wastewater effluent quality based on the processing of various type of microalgae
No Parameter
Wastewater Influent
Quality
Wastewater Effluent Quality Type of Microalgae
Unit
Water Quality Standard Spirulin
a sp.
Nannochl oropsis
sp.
Chlorell a sp.
Mixture of Microalgae
1 COD 119±27,1 31 46 54 29 mg/L 100
2 BOD5 62±12,6 22 19 16 17 mg/L 30
3 Ammonia-N 13,4±1,3 2.2 2.8 3.2 3.5 mg/L 10
4 pH 7,45 31 46 54 29 - 6-9
The measurement result of organic material removal based on COD and BOD5 values are quite high, especially the BOD5. COD removal by Nannochloropsis sp. This research showed a value of 65.7% (Figure 1). In this research, Chorella sp. only able to reduce COD by 53%. Ammonia- N removal can reach more than 80% for Spirulina sp. and Nannochloropsis sp. (Figure 1). This result is also supported by Afifah et al. (2020), which showed that ammonia-N removal was higher than COD removal [25, 26], this is because microalgae actively remove nutrients first for growth.
The specific growth rate of Nannochloropsis sp. only shows 0.256±0.0024 d-1[21]. The specific growth rate of Chorella sp. This study also showed a high rate of 0.61 d-1. The cultivation of Chorella sp. in other studies shows specific growth rates in the exponential period were 0.412, 0.429, 0.343, and 0.948 day−1 for each wastewater in the four wastewaters and that is the wastewater before primary settling, wastewater after primary settling, wastewater after activated sludge tank [23]. This is because of the high amount of nutrients removed in the reactor, especially for NH3-N, 75-82% (Figure 1). Nutrients are substances used for biosynthesis and to support growth. If the nutrients are not enough, the cells to be cultured cannot grow optimally, so they cannot maximize a cell's growth. Bacteria oxidize incoming organic waste to produce carbon dioxide, ammonia, phosphate. Algae will use the carbon dioxide produced by bacteria to perform photosynthesis.
Figure 1. Differences of pollutant parameter removal for each type of microalgae Biomass Growth
The specific growth rate of each microalga is calculated based on MLSS (Mixed Liquor Suspended Solid). Cultivation results indicate that the specific growth value is in the range of 0.61 – 0.68 d-1. The highest specific growth rate was found in the Nannochloropsis Sp. (Figure 2).
This result is similar to that of Sofiyah and Suryawan's research which shows the growth of Nannochloropsis sp. faster than Spirulina sp[27].The yield lipid measurements for Spirulina sp., Nannochloropsis sp., Chlorella Sp., and a mixture of microalgae are 11.5%, 13.8%, 24.1%, and 14.2%. (Figure 3).
Figure 2. Differences specific growthrate values µ (d-1) for each type of microalgae
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90
COD BOD5 Ammonia-N
% Removal
0.54 0.56 0.58 0.6 0.62 0.64 0.66 0.68 0.7
Spirulina sp. Nannochloropsis sp.
Chlorella sp. Mixture of Microalgae µ (d-1)
Figure 3.Lipid yield for each type of cultivated microalgae
The High-Rate Algae Reactor (HRAR) technology with natural microalgae can produce a microalgae specific growth rate of 0.624 day−1[28]. The growth rate of algae is affected by two main factors. The first factor is the source of nutrition and energy, while the second factor is environmental factors such as pH, temperature, and salinity. Nannochloropsis sp. produces lipid 31–68% [29] and 14% [30].Other studies using Spirulina sp. produce 5% - 69% [31], 12.5–
13.4% [32], 28.55 [33] of lipid. Meanwhile, Chlorella sp. in this study has a range in the research of Taher et al. (2015) with a lipid yield value of 12% –25.9% [30].Shehaanet al., reported that the increased lipid content in nutrient deficiency condition was caused by the low rate of cell component production, but the oil production remained high [34]. Environmental stress, such as lack of nitrogen, causes inhibited cell division, but it does not slow down oil production.
However, the industrialization of the lipid extraction method into biodiesel is very difficultused on a large scale, is still scarce [35].
Conclusion
The results obtained in the COD, BOD5, and Ammonia-N removal are varied from 80%, 95%, and 82%. Microalgae for wastewater treatment can be applied. The higher Yield lipid for Chlorella sp.is 24.1%. It is hoped that these findings can be continued by increasing the scale of the domestic wastewater treatment reactor. In addition, the highest lipid yield in Chlorella sp. can be followed by the conversion of lipids into biodiesel.Domestic wastewater treatment with increased scale also needs to be developed with microalgae as the main biomass in processing.
Acknowledgements
This research is one of the annual research grants from Universitas Pertamina 2019. The author would like to thank LPPMI Universitas Pertamina for the opportunity given.
References
[1] Verma, R., & Srivastava, A. (2018). Carbon dioxide sequestration and its enhanced utilization by photoautotroph microalgae. Environmental development, 27, 95-106.
0 5 10 15 20 25 30
Spirulina sp. Nannochloropsis sp.
Chlorella sp. Mixture of Microalgae
Yield (%)
[2] Guo, W., Cheng, J., Song, Y., Kumar, S., Ali, K. A., Guo, C., & Qiao, Z. (2019). Developing a CO 2 bicarbonation absorber for promoting microalgal growth rates with an improved photosynthesis pathway. RSC advances, 9(5), 2746-2755.
[3] Li, L., & Liu, Y. (2009). Ammonia removal in electrochemical oxidation: mechanism and pseudo-kinetics. Journal of Hazardous Materials, 161(2-3), 1010-1016.
[4] Roodenko, K., Hinojos, D., Hodges, K., Veyan, J. F., Chabal, Y. J., Clark, K. P., ... &
Robbins, D. (2019, February). Non-dispersive infrared (NDIR) sensor for real-time nitrate monitoring in wastewater treatment. In Optical Fibers and Sensors for Medical Diagnostics and Treatment Applications XIX (Vol. 10872, p. 108720G). International Society for Optics and Photonics.
[5] Apritama, M. R., Suryawan, I., Afifah, A. S., &Septiariva, I. Y. (2020). Phytoremediation of effluent textile wwtp for NH3-N and Cu reduction using pistia stratiotes. Plant Archives, 20(Supplement 1), 2384-2388.
[6] Septiariva, I. Y., & Suryawan, I. (2021). Development of Water Quality Index (WQI) and Hydrogen Sulfide (H2S) for Assessment Around Suwung Landfill, Bali Island. Journal of Sustainability Science and Management.
[7] Terry, K. L. (1986). Photosynthesis in modulated light: quantitative dependence of photosynthetic enhancement on flashing rate. Biotechnology and Bioengineering, 28(7), 988- 995.
[8] Yoon, J. H., Shin, J. H., Ahn, E. K., & Park, T. H. (2008). High cell density culture of Anabaena variabilis with controlled light intensity and nutrient supply. Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology, 18, 918-925.
[9] Yan, C., Zhu, L., & Wang, Y. (2016). Photosynthetic CO2 uptake by microalgae for biogas upgrading and simultaneously biogas slurry decontamination by using of microalgae photobioreactor under various light wavelengths, light intensities, and photoperiods. Applied Energy, 178, 9-18.
[10] Yen, H. W., Hu, I. C., Chen, C. Y., Nagarajan, D., & Chang, J. S. (2019). Design of photobioreactors for algal cultivation. In Biofuels from algae (pp. 225-256). Elsevier.
[11] Suryawan, I. W. K., Prajati, G., Afifah, A. S., &Apritama, M. R. (2021). NH3-N and COD reduction in Endek (Balinese textile) wastewater by activated sludge under different DO condition with ozone pretreatment. Walailak Journal of Science and Technology (WJST), 18(6), 9127-11.
[12] Suryawan, I. W. K., Septiariva, I. Y., Helmy, Q., Notodarmojo, S., Wulandari, M., Sari, N.
K., . . . Jun-Wei, L. (2021). Comparison of Ozone Pre-Treatment and Post-Treatment Hybrid with Moving Bed Biofilm Reactor in Removal of Remazol Black 5. International Journal of Technology, 12(2).
[13] Peraturan Menteri Lingkungan Hidup Dan KehutananRepublikIndonesia , “Nomor P.16/MENLHK/SETJEN/KUM.1/4/2019 TentangPerubahanKedua Atas Peraturan Menteri Lingkungan Hidup Nomor 5 Tahun 2014 Tentang Baku Mutu Air Limbah,” 2019.
[14] Suryawan, I. W. K., & Sofiyah, E. S. (2020). Cultivation of chlorella sp. and algae mix for NH3-N and PO4-P domestic wastewater removal. Civil and Environmental Science Journal, 3(1).
[15] Rosarina, D., Laksanawati, E. K., &Rosanti, D. (2019). StrukturKomunitas Plankton di Sungai Cisadane Kota Tangerang pada Tata Guna Lahan Berbeda. Sainmatika:
JurnalIlmiahMatematika dan IlmuPengetahuanAlam, 16(2), 185-191.
[16] Pratiwi, N. T., Hariyadi, S., & Kiswari, D. I. (2017). StrukturKomunitasPerifitonDibagian Hulu Sungai Cisadane, Kawasan Taman Nasional GunungHalimun Salak, Jawa Barat.
JurnalBiologi Indonesia, 13(2).
[17] Bligh, E. G., & Dyer, W. J. (1959). A rapid method of total lipid extraction and purification.
Canadian journal of biochemistry and physiology, 37(8), 911-917.
[18] Doke, J., Raman, V. K., &Ghole, V. S. (2004). Treatment of anaerobically digested wastewater using Spirulina sp. International Journal on algae, 6(4).
[19] Sankaran, K., & Premalatha, M. (2018). Nutrients uptake from anaerobically digested distillery wastewater by Spirulina sp. under xenon lamp illumination. Journal of Water Process Engineering, 25, 295-300.
[20] Emparan, Q., Harun, R., & Jye, Y. S. (2019). Phycoremediation of treated palm oil mill effluent (TPOME) using Nannochloropsis sp. cells immobilized in the biological sodium alginate beads: effect of POME concentration. BioResources, 14(4), 9429-9443.
[21] Resdi, R., Idris, A., &Shiun, L. J. (2019). Effect Of Red Light Emitting Diod (Led) On Nannochloropsis Sp. Growth, Lipid Content And Nutrients Reduction Efficiency Using Palm Oil Mill Effluent (POME). ipsb2019, 44.
[22] Hammouda, O., Abdel-Raouf, N., Shaaban, M., Kamal, M., & Plant, B. S. W. T. (2015).
Treatment of mixed domestic-industrial wastewater using microalgae Chlorella sp. Journal of American Science, 11(12), 303-315.
[23] Wang, L., Min, M., Li, Y., Chen, P., Chen, Y., Liu, Y., ... & Ruan, R. (2010). Cultivation of green algae Chlorella sp. in different wastewaters from municipal wastewater treatment plant. Applied biochemistry and biotechnology, 162(4), 1174-1186.
[24] Slamet, A., & Hermana, J. (2012). Effect of Light Exposure and Water Depth on the Performance of Algae Reactor during the Treatment of Surabaya municipal wastewater. J.
Appl. Environ. Biol. Sci, 2(12), 615-619.
[25] Afifah, A. S., Suryawan, I. W. K., & Sarwono, A. (2020). Microalgae production using photo-bioreactor with intermittent aeration for municipal wastewater substrate and nutrient removal. Communications in Science and Technology, 5(2), 107-111.
[26] Afifah, A. S., Suryawan, I. W. K., Apritama, M. R., Prajati, G., &Adicita, Y. (2019, October). Kinetics of organic and nutrient degradation with microalgae biomass cultured in photobioreactors. In 2019 2nd International Conference on Applied Engineering (ICAE) (pp.
1-4). IEEE.
[27] Sofiyah, E. S., & Suryawan, I. W. K. (2021). Cultivation of Spirulina platensis and Nannochloropsisoculata for nutrient removal from municipal wastewater. Rekayasa, 14(1), 93-97.
[28] Septiani, W. D., Slamet, A., & Hermana, J. (2014). PengaruhKonsentrasiSubstratterhadap Laju Pertumbuhan Alga dan BakteriHeterotropik pada Sistem HRAR. Jurnal Teknik ITS, 3(2), D98-D103.
[29] Chisti, Y. (2007). Biodiesel from microalgae. Biotechnology advances, 25(3), 294-306.
[30] Taher, H., Al-Zuhair, S., Al-Marzouqi, A. H., Haik, Y., & Farid, M. (2014). Effective extraction of microalgae lipids from wet biomass for biodiesel production. Biomass and bioenergy, 66, 159-167.
[31] Chaiklahan, R., Chirasuwan, N., Loha, V., & Bunnag, B. (2008). Lipid and fatty acids extraction from the cyanobacterium Spirulina. Sci Asia, 34(3), 299-305.
[32] Diniz, G. S., Silva, A. F., Araújo, O. Q., &Chaloub, R. M. (2017). The potential of microalgal biomass production for biotechnological purposes using wastewater resources.
Journal of Applied Phycology, 29(2), 821-832.
[33] Nayak, M., Thirunavoukkarasu, M., & Mohanty, R. C. (2016). Cultivation of freshwater microalga Scenedesmus sp. using a low-cost inorganic fertilizer for enhanced biomass and lipid yield. The Journal of general and applied microbiology, 62(1), 7-13.
[34] Sheehan, J., Dunahay, T., Benemann, J., & Roessler, P. (1998). A look back at the US Department of Energy’s aquatic species program: biodiesel from algae. National Renewable Energy Laboratory, 328, 1-294.
[35] Raksasat, R., Kiatkittipong, K., Kiatkittipong, W., Wong, C. Y., Lam, M. K., Ho, Y. C., ... &
Lim, J. W. (2021). Blended Sewage Sludge–Palm Kernel Expeller to Enhance the Palatability of Black Soldier Fly Larvae for Biodiesel Production. Processes, 9(2), 297.
