Wastewater

Engineering

Ecology

Algae

Biology

Pollutant

Phosphorus

Chlorella vulgaris

Botany

Environmental engineering

Organic chemistry

Leachate

Environmental chemistry

Biomass (ecology)

Agronomy

Environmental science

Chemistry

Photobioreactor

Nutrient

Scenedesmus

Pulp and paper industry

Chemical oxygen demand

Nitrate

Bioresource Technology

In this study, landfill leachate was pre-treated with NaClO, and then diluted to 5%, 10% and 15% for microalgae growth of Chlorella vulgaris and Scenedesmus dimorphus in the mono- and co-culture modes to investigate the nutrient removal and growth characteristics of microalgae. The results revealed that landfill leachate with the 10% dilution rate was conducive for microalgae growth and exhibited robust biomass growth and the highest nutrient removal efficiency. The co-culture biomass in 10% landfill leachate achieved 0.266 g/L within 10 days and demonstrated the improved nutrient utilisation efficiency of microalgae. In addition, the chemical oxygen demand, ammonia nitrogen, total nitrate and total phosphorus removal efficiencies accordingly reached 81.0%, 80.1%, 72.1% and 86.0% in 10% landfill leachate. Meanwhile, both the enzyme activity and fluorescence parameters proved that the cell activity of co-culture was higher than that of mono-culture.

Microalgae Chlorella vulgaris and Scenedesmus dimorphus co-cultivation with landfill leachate for pollutant removal and lipid production