• KSBB Journal
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.236-240
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• 2004

Korean wastewaters have higher nitrogen concentrations than typical wastewaters of other countries. Most treatment processes such as activated sludge processes will need to supplement extra carbon sources for a complete removal of remaining nitrogen after the initial wastewater treatment, Because of these difficult matters, we have searched wastewater treatment methods that require no additional carbon sources. Wastewater treatment by microalgae in photobioreactors, using a green eukaryotic microalgae, Chlorella kessleri, showed a promising results and thus was selected to study further. This system is not intended to replace the conventional system but is to assist the existing biological treatment systems as a supplemental nitrogen removal process. Thus the secondary treated livestock wastewater was tested. Column type photobioreactors developed in our laboratory were used. When aerated with 5% CO$_2$ balanced with air at 1 vvm and illuminated at 100 ${\mu}$mol/㎡/s under 25$^{\circ}C$ and PH 7-8 by CO$_2$ buffering effect, the maximum nitrogen removal rate was 2.6 mg/L/hr. The results confirmed a possibility of microalgal wastewater treatment system as a secondary system to remove extra nitrogen sources. Based on these experimental results, the size of the optimal microalgal wastewater system was calculated. For the wastewater whose initial nitrogen concentration of 150 mg/L, the optimal batch system was found to be a 2 stage system with a combined retention time of 4.6 day. From the continuous experiments, nitrogen removal rates were examined under different dilution rates and 2 stage system was also found to be the optimal system. The combined retention time for the continuous system was 3.5 days. It is expected that conventional biological wastewater treatment systems followed by microalgal systems would reliably decrease the nitrogen concentration below the government criteria even for the livestock wastewater with low C/N ratio.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.23 no.10
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• pp.1460-1471
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• 2013

Microalgal biofuel production from wastewater has economic and environmental advantages. This article investigates the lipid production from high chemical oxygen demand (COD) bioethanol wastewater without dilution or additional nutrients, using a newly isolated heterotrophic microalga, Chlorella vulgaris LAM-Q. To enhance lipid accumulation, the combined effects of important operational parameters were studied via response surface methodology. The optimal conditions were found to be temperature of $22.8^{\circ}C$, initial pH of 6.7, and inoculum density of $1.2{\times}10^8cells/ml$. Under these conditions, the lipid productivity reached 195.96 mg/l/d, which was markedly higher than previously reported values in similar systems. According to the fatty acid composition, the obtained lipids were suitable feedstock for biodiesel production. Meanwhile, 61.40% of COD, 51.24% of total nitrogen, and 58.76% of total phosphorus were removed from the bioethanol wastewater during microalgal growth. In addition, 19.17% of the energy contained in the wastewater was transferred to the microalgal biomass in the fermentation process. These findings suggest that C. vulgaris LAM-Q can efficiently produce lipids from high-concentration bioethanol wastewater, and simultaneously performs wastewater treatment.

• Korean Journal of Microbiology
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• v.48 no.3
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• pp.192-199
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• 2012

Microalgal biotechnology has gained prominence because of the ability of microalgae to produce value-added products including biodiesel through photosynthesis. However, carbon and nutrient source is often a limiting factor for microalgal growth leading to higher input costs for sufficient biomass production. Use of municipal wastewater as a low cost alternative to grow microalgae as well as to treat the same has been demonstrated in this study using mini raceway open ponds. Municipal wastewater was collected after primary treatment and microalgae indigenous in the wastewater were encouraged to grow in open raceways under optimum conditions. The mean removal efficiencies of TN, TP, COD-$_{Mn}$, $NH_3$-N after 6 days of retention time was 80.18%, 63.56%, 76.34%, and 96.74% respectively. The 18S rRNA gene analysis of the community revealed the presence of Chlorella vulgaris and Scenedesmus obliquus as the dominant microalgae. In addition, 16S rRNA gene analysis demonstrated that Rhodobacter, Luteimonas, Porphyrobacter, Agrobacterium, and Thauera were present along with the microalgae. From these results, it is concluded that microalgae could be used to effectively treat municipal wastewater without aerobic treatment, which incurs additional energy costs. In addition, municipal wastewater shall also serve as an excellent carbon and nitrogen source for microalgal growth. Moreover, the microalgal biomass shall be utilized for commercial purposes.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.29 no.9
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• pp.1434-1443
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• 2019

Although chemical oxygen demand (COD) is an important issue for wastewater treatment, COD reduction with microalgae has been less studied compared to nitrogen or phosphorus removal. COD removal is not efficient in conventional wastewater treatment using microalgae, because the algae release organic compounds, thereby finally increasing the COD level. This study focused on enhancing COD removal and meeting the effluent standard for discharge by optimizing sludge inoculation timing, which was an important factor in forming a desirable algae/bacteria consortium for more efficient COD removal and higher biomass productivity. Activated sludge has been added to reduce COD in many studies, but its inoculation was done at the start of cultivation. However, when the sludge was added after 3 days of cultivation, at which point the COD concentration started to increase again, the algal growth and biomass productivity were higher than those of the initial sludge inoculation and control (without sludge). Algal and bacterial cell numbers measured by qPCR were also higher with sludge inoculation at 3 days later. In a semi-continuous cultivation system, a hydraulic retention time of 5 days with sludge inoculation resulted in the highest biomass productivity and N/P removal. This study achieved a further improved COD removal than the conventional microalgal wastewater treatment, by introducing bacteria in activated sludge at optimized timing.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.109-118
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• 2015

Open raceway ponds are cost-efficient for mass cultivation of microalgae compared with photobioreactors. Although low-cost options like wastewater as nutrient source is studied to overcome the commercialization threshold for biodiesel production from microalgae, a cost analysis on the use of wastewater and other incremental increases in productivity has not been elucidated. We determined the effect of using wastewater and wavelength filters on microalgal productivity. Experimental results were then fitted into a model, and cost analysis was performed in comparison with control raceways. Three different microalgal strains, Chlorella vulgaris AG10032, Chlorella sp. JK2, and Scenedesmus sp. JK10, were tested for nutrient removal under different light wavelengths (blue, green, red, and white) using filters in batch cultivation. Blue wavelength showed an average of 27% higher nutrient removal and at least 42% higher chemical oxygen demand removal compared with white light. Naturally, the specific growth rate of microalgae cultivated under blue wavelength was on average 10.8% higher than white wavelength. Similarly, lipid productivity was highest in blue wavelength, at least 46.8% higher than white wavelength, whereas FAME composition revealed a mild increase in oleic and palmitic acid levels. Cost analysis reveals that raceways treating wastewater and using monochromatic wavelength would decrease costs from 2.71 to 0.73 $/kg biomass. We prove that increasing both biomass and lipid productivity is possible through cost-effective approaches, thereby accelerating the commercialization of low-value products from microalgae, like biodiesel.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.30 no.6
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• pp.715-723
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• 2016

This study investigated the effect of high concentration of free ammonia on microalgal growth and substrate removal by applying real wastewater nitrogen ratio. To test of this, the conditions of free ammonia 1, 3, 6, 9, 12, 15 mg-N/L are compared. After 3 days of incubation, algal growth of Chlorella vulgaris and carbon removal rate are respectively lower in the reactors of FA 12, 15 mg-N/L compared to the others. This indicates that the high concentration of free ammonia, in this case, above 12 mg-N/L, has negative effect on algal growth and metabolic activity. Also, high concentration of free ammonia causes the proton imbalance, ammonium accumulation in algae and has toxicity for these reasons. So, we have to consider free ammonia in applying the microalgae to wastewater treatment system by the way of diluting wastewater or controlling pH and temperature.

• Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.393-400
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• 2016

The aim of this study was to evaluate the biomass production and dairy wastewater treatment using Chlorella vulgaris. The results indicated that the maximum percentages of biochemical oxygen demand, chemical oxygen demand, suspended solids, total nitrogen, and total phosphorus removed were 85.61%, 80.62%, 29.10%, 85.47%, and 65.96%, respectively, in dairy effluent at 10 d. A maximum of 1.23 g/L dry biomass was obtained in 7 d. The biomass productivity was strongly influenced by the nutrient reduction in the dairy effluent. The biodiesel produced by the C. vulgaris in the dairy effluent was in good agreement with the American Society of Testing and Materials-D6751 and European Standards 14214 standards. Therefore, using dairy effluent for microalgal cultures could be a useful and practical strategy for an advanced, environmentally friendly treatment process.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.27 no.6
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• pp.703-709
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• 2013

Among many microalgae cultivation types, heterotrophic culture with low cost carbon sources and energy saving culture method is crucial. A result of estimating the effects of pH on wastewater treatment using heterotrophic growing microalgae Chlorella sorokiniana shows that there was no difference in microalgae growth amount and nitrogen, phosphorus removal rate by wide range of pH(5 ~ 9). From pH 5 to 9, total nitrogen, phosphorous and glucose removal rates were 10.5 mg-N/L/d, 2 mg-P/L/d, 800 ~ 1000 mg/L respectively. This study reveals that C. sorokiniana cannot metabolite glycerol heterotrophically, however, glucose and acetate were proper carbon sources for growth and T-N, T-P and TOC removal. This research highlights the potential of heterotrophic microalgal growth with wastewater treatment plant with wide range of pH and carbon sources.

• Journal of The Korean Society of Agricultural Engineers
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• v.53 no.1
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• pp.63-69
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• 2011

The green algae Scenedesmus acuminatus was cultured in different media: animal wastewater and an artificial culture medium in order to evaluate potential use for tertiary treatment. The experiments were conducted with air flowrate 1~2 L/min at $28{\sim}30^{\circ}C$. The nitrogen and phosphorus showed very similar removal efficiencies (68~77 % and 69~80 % for nitrogen and phosphorus respectively). The optimal fed period was estimated as three days in the semi-continuous experiment. The effects of $CO_2$ (4.5 %) injection on nutrient uptake from animal wastewater (biological treatment effluent) were compared to an air injection under the same conditions of light and photoperiod. The uptake rates of nutrient with air injection were observed 0.009 gN/gChl-a/day, 0.028 gN/gChl-a/day and T-P 0.003 gP/gChl-a/day for nitrate, total nitrogen and phosphorus respectively. The rates were enhanced by addition of $CO_2$ to 0.026 gN/gChl-a/day, 0.076 gN/gChl-a/day and T-P 0.018 gP/gChl-a/day. This study establishes that $CO_2$ addition during nutrient deprivation of microalgal cells may accelerate tertiary wastewater treatment.

• Microbiology and Biotechnology Letters
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• v.41 no.2
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• pp.207-214
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• 2013

A concerted effort to develop alternative forms of energy is underway due to fossil fuel shortages and its deleterious effects. Recently, bioenergy from microalgae has gained prominence and the use of municipal wastewater as a low cost alternative for a nutrient source has significant advantages. In this study, we have employed municipal wastewater directly after primary treatment (primary settling basin) in a small scale raceway pond (SSRP) for microalgal growth. Indigenous microalgae in the wastewater were encouraged to grow in the SSRP under optimal conditions. The mean removal efficiencies of TN, TP, and $NH_3-N$ after 6 days were 77.77%, 63.55%, and 89.02%, respectively. The average lipid content of the microalgae was 19.51% of dry cell weight, and linolenate and linoleate (18:n) were the predominant fatty acids. The 18S rRNA gene analysis and microscopic observations of the indigenous microalgae community revealed the presence of Chlorella vulgaris and Scenedesmus obliquus as the dominant microalgae. These results indicate that untreated municipal wastewater, serving as an excellent nitrogen and phosphate source for microalgal growth, could be treated using microalgae in open raceway ponds. Moreover, microalgal biomass could be further profitable by the extraction of biodiesel.