Microalgae-based wastewater treatment and resource recovery in the form of bioenergy and other bioproducts

Abstract

Treatment of industrial wastewater is one of the major challenges in the modern world. This is necessary for protecting our environment, and not taking proactive steps towards this can cause further environmental degradation. Biological treatment technologies received much interest in the past few decades due to their inexpensive character, and this method is considered sustainable and more environmentally friendly. Moreover, public acceptance of biological treatment technologies is higher than other conventional treatment technologies. In the past few decades, increased stress has been given to treating wastewater and recovering valuable resources, further incentivizing the industry to actively develop such waste mitigation processes. Such systems can improve the economics of wastewater treatment. Microalgae-based treatment systems can achieve such targets as microalgae can utilize a wide range of such wastewaters for their growth. The recovered algal biomass can be further processed to produce bioenergy and other valuable products. This chapter intends to discuss the feasibility of algal wastewater treatment from different industrial sources. © 2023 Scrivener Publishing LLC. All rights reserved.