Winery Wastewater Treatment by Microalgae to Produce Low-Cost Biomass for Energy Production Purposes

Elena Spennati, Alessandro Alberto Casazza and Attilio Converti
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Elena Spennati: Department of Civil, Chemical and Environmental Engineering, University of Genoa, I-16145 Genoa, Italy
Alessandro Alberto Casazza: Department of Civil, Chemical and Environmental Engineering, University of Genoa, I-16145 Genoa, Italy
Attilio Converti: Department of Civil, Chemical and Environmental Engineering, University of Genoa, I-16145 Genoa, Italy

Energies, 2020, vol. 13, issue 10, 1-14

Abstract: Even though biofuel production from microalgae has become more and more attractive in recent years, it is limited especially by the high cost of microalgae cultivation. However, microalgae can be grown in wastewater in order to reduce their production cost and, at the same time, the polluting impact of wastewaters. Winery wastewaters, which are abundantly released from the wine making process, have a large pollution impact related to their high loads of total solids, chemical oxygen demand (COD) and polyphenol concentration. In this research work a co-culture of Chlorella vulgaris and Arthrospira platensis was used to treat three different winery wastewaters from different steps of the wine production process, in order to produce low-cost biomass intended for biofuel production. Growth of the co-culture and reduction of wastewater pollutant impact were followed by daily determinations of biomass concentration, COD and polyphenol content. The highest productivities of biomass (0.66 g Dry Weight /L·day) and lipids (7.10 ± 0.22 g Lipid /100 L·day) were obtained using 20% of second washing winery wastewater after 4 days of treatment. Moreover, COD and polyphenol content of the three different wastewaters were reduced by the co-culture by more than 92% and 50%, respectively. These results suggest that winery wastewaters can be used successfully for the growth of A. platensis and C. vulgaris co-culture in order to obtain inexpensive biomass for energy production purposes.

Keywords: microalgae co-culture; COD removal; polyphenol removal; winery wastewater valorization; biomass production (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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