Vol. 5 (4) : July-August 2014 issue
Green Farming Vol. 5 (4) : 623-626 ; July-August, 2014
Nutrient sequestration and phycoremediation of sewage waste water by selective microalgae
GULSHAN K. SHARMA1, SHAKEEL A. KHAN2*, FAYAZ A. MALLA3 and N. GUPTA4
Centre for Environment Science and Climate Resilient Agriculture (CESCRA), Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI), New Delhi -110 012. India
Designation : 1,3Ph.D. Scholar, 2Sr. Scientist *(shakeel_iari@yahoo.com), 4Principal Scientist
Subject : Agronomy and Crop Production
Paper No. : P-1498
Total Pages : 4
Received : 11 February 2014
Revised accepted : 23 June 2014
First Page
Citation :
GULSHAN K. SHARMA, SHAKEEL A. KHAN, FAYAZ A. MALLA and N. GUPTA. 2014. Nutrient sequestration and phycoremediation of sewage waste water by selective microalgae. Green Farming Vol. 5 (4) : 623-626 ; July-August, 2014
ABSTRACT
Phycoremediation is the process of employing algae toget rid of excess nutrient load from wastewater and subsequently diminish the pollution load and eutrophication. The present work was aimed to evaluate the role of inoculated microalgae in nutrient dynamics, phycoremediation and biomass production of IARI sewage water. Three microalgae viz., Chlorella minutissima, Scendesmus spp and Nostoc muscorum as well as their mixed consortium were used. These selected microalgae reduced TDS, BOD and Ammonium-N by more than 90% and COD and Nitrate-N by >80% and total P > 70% in the raw waste water. The maximum biomass was observed in Scendesmus and C. minutissima, i.e. 0.79 ± 0.02 and 0.78 ± 0.01 g L-1, respectively. Investigation revealed that C. minutissima was having best phycoremediation potential among all three microalgae and even better than consortium. The results of this study suggest that growing algae in nutrient-rich sewage wastewater offers a new option of applying microalgae to manage the nutrient load and reuse same water for irrigation purpose after the phycoremediation.
Key words :
Biomass, Chlorella, Microalgae, Phycoremediation, Sewage waste water.