Production and harvesting of microalgae biomass from wastewater: a critical review

Abstract

The wide range of microalgae applications has increased in the last decade, due to their importance as the source of biofuel and biomass. The potential of wastewater as a culture media lies in the presence of high contents of nutrients and elements required to improve the growth of microalgae and, thus, the high quantity of biomass. However, these properties might be the limitations in the harvesting of microalgae biomass from wastewater. This review discussed the potential of wastewater as the production media for biomass and focused on the harvesting methods, because it represented a major challenge in the quality and quantity of microalgal cells. It can be concluded that among several technologies used for harvesting microalgae biomass from wastewater, the natural flocculant method was the most efficient due to the absence of toxic by-products and secondary effects on the quality of biomass yield, as well as the high biomass quantity.

Keywords:

• wastewater
• flocculation
• harvesting methods
• quantification
• microalgae

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

The authors gratefully acknowledge Ministry of the Higher Education of Malaysia for the research project financial support under fundamental research Grant Scheme (FRGS) [vot number 1453] and prototype research Grant Scheme (PRGS) [vot number G004].