Cultivating Chlorella sorokiniana AK-1 with swine wastewater for simultaneous wastewater treatment and algal biomass production

Swine wastewater is rich in nitrogen and organic carbon which are essential macronutrients for microalgal growth. Three indigenous microalgal strains (Chlorella sorokiniana AK-1, Chlorella sorokiniana MS-C1, and Chlorella sorokiniana TJ5) were examined for their growth capability in untreated swine wastewater. C. sorokiniana AK-1 showed the best tolerance towards swine wastewater, and obtained the highest biomass concentration (5.45 g/L) and protein productivity (0.27 g/L/d) when grown in 50% strength swine wastewater. Cell immobilization using sponge as the solid carrier further enhanced maximal biomass concentration and protein productivity to 8.08 g/L and 0.272 g/L/d, respectively. Reuse of microalgae loaded sponge resulted in an average biomass production and protein productivity of 6.51 g/L and 0.15 g/L/d, respectively. The COD, TN and TP removal efficiency for the swine wastewater was 90.1, 97.0 and 92.8%, respectively. This innovative swine wastewater treatment method has demonstrated excellent performance on simultaneous swine wastewater treatment and protein-rich microalgal biomass production.