Wastewater

Engineering

Sewage treatment

Ecology

Biotechnology

Biology

Biofouling

Fouling

Biochemical engineering

Waste management

Genetics

Environmental engineering

Membrane

Biomass (ecology)

Process engineering

Environmental science

Photobioreactor

Pulp and paper industry

The Science of The Total Environment

The scientific community has turned its interest to microalgae lately, because of their countless applications such as wastewater treatment and pharmaceutical industry. Nevertheless, so far applied cultivation methods are still prohibitive. Ordinary cultivation techniques in which microalgae are suspended in liquid medium suffer from many bottlenecks, such as low biomass productivities, difficulty in biomass harvesting and recovery, high installation and operating cost, high water requirements etc. Although, microalgal biofilms are known to be a nuisance because of surfaces fouling, they have emerged as an innovative technology with which microalgae are developed attached to a solid surface. This technique seems to be advantageous as compared to conventional cultivation systems. Microalgal biofilm systems could resolve the problematic aspects of ordinary cultivation techniques such as low biomass productivities, water management and biomass recovery. A detailed description of this technique with respect to the parameters affecting them is reviewed in this work.

Microalgal biofilms: A further step over current microalgal cultivation techniques