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Bioremediation of synthetic high–chemical oxygen demand wastewater using microalgal species Chlorella pyrenoidosa

ABSTRACT The microalgal species Chlorella pyrenoidosa was cultivated in synthetic wastewater of initial chemical oxygen demand (COD), nitrate, and phosphate concentrations of 5000, 100, and 40 mg/L, respectively. The aim of the study was to find out the tolerance of microalgae to different COD concentrations and the extent of COD degradation at those concentrations. Three dilutions of wastewater (initial COD concentrations 5000, 3000, and 1000 mg/L) and three inoculum sizes (0.1, 0.2, and 0.3 g/L) were considered for the study. The experimental parameters such as total organic carbon, total inorganic carbon, COD, optical density, total solids, nitrate, and phosphate were measured on a daily basis. Biodegradation kinetics was determined for all cases using first-order reaction and Monod degradation equations. Optimal results showed that up to 90% reduction in TOC was obtained for 1000 COD wastewater while only 38% reduction in total organic carbon (TOC) was achieved for 5000 COD wastewater. Over 95% reduction in nitrate and nearly 90% removal of phosphate were obtained with the lowest microalgal inoculum concentration (i.e., 0.1 g/L) for all COD dilutions. This study showed that microalgal species C. pyrenoidosa can successfully degrade the organic carbon source (i.e., acetate) with significant removal efficiencies for nitrate and phosphate.