Nitrogen and Phosphorus Removal from Kitchen Wastewater Using a Mixed Microalgae-Bacteria Culture

Low, Wei Feng (2018) Nitrogen and Phosphorus Removal from Kitchen Wastewater Using a Mixed Microalgae-Bacteria Culture. Final Year Project (Bachelor), Tunku Abdul Rahman University College.

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Abstract

Nowadays, microalgae became a hot topic in research field, the usage of microalgae has been discovered in many ways. Microalgae has been shown to demonstrate high potential in the food industry, medical, wastewater treatment, environmental study and so on, because the microalgae has the high nutrition value. In this study, the potential of microalgae-bacteria symbiosis on nutrients removal from kitchen wastewater was studied. The effect of the symbiosis treatment on the chlorophyll content was also investigated. The microalgae was isolated from the pond in Tunku Abdul Rahman University College and identified by using microscopic examination. The microalgae isolated was identified as the genus Chlorella sp. with an average size of about 2 - 20μm, spherical shaped and single-celled green algae. A comparison of the nutrient removal capacity was carried out between the Chlorella sp.-Listeria sp. system and the single Chlorella sp. system. The results indicated that both systems reduced the nitrogen and phosphorus content of the kitchen wastewater. However, there is no significant difference between the Chlorella sp.-Listeria sp. system and the single Chlorella sp. system in the removal of nitrogen and phosphorus respectively. The chlorophyll contents in both system were increasing first 4 days only and then started to decrease, results shown that the final chlorophyll concentration were 7.82± 1.747 in Chlorella sp. system and 7.784± 3.500 in Chlorella sp.-Listeria sp. system. The results indicated that there is no symbiotic relationship between the Chlorella sp and the Listeria sp. and thus Chlorella sp.-Listeria sp. culture does not increase the nutrient removal capacity of the microalgae. Keywords: Removal of nitrogen and phosphorus , Chlorella sp. system , Chlorella sp.-Listeria sp. system