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Review
. 2022 Sep 8:13:100205.
doi: 10.1016/j.ese.2022.100205. eCollection 2023 Jan.

Microalgae-based wastewater treatment: Mechanisms, challenges, recent advances, and future prospects

Abdallah Abdelfattah  1   2 , Sameh Samir Ali  3   4 , Hassan Ramadan  2 , Eslam Ibrahim El-Aswar  5 , Reham Eltawab  1   2 , Shih-Hsin Ho  6 , Tamer Elsamahy  3 , Shengnan Li  6 , Mostafa M El-Sheekh  4 , Michael Schagerl  7 , Michael Kornaros  8 , Jianzhong Sun  3
Affiliations
Review

Microalgae-based wastewater treatment: Mechanisms, challenges, recent advances, and future prospects

Abdallah Abdelfattah et al. Environ Sci Ecotechnol. .

Abstract

The rapid expansion of both the global economy and the human population has led to a shortage of water resources suitable for direct human consumption. As a result, water remediation will inexorably become the primary focus on a global scale. Microalgae can be grown in various types of wastewaters (WW). They have a high potential to remove contaminants from the effluents of industries and urban areas. This review focuses on recent advances on WW remediation through microalgae cultivation. Attention has already been paid to microalgae-based wastewater treatment (WWT) due to its low energy requirements, the strong ability of microalgae to thrive under diverse environmental conditions, and the potential to transform WW nutrients into high-value compounds. It turned out that microalgae-based WWT is an economical and sustainable solution. Moreover, different types of toxins are removed by microalgae through biosorption, bioaccumulation, and biodegradation processes. Examples are toxins from agricultural runoffs and textile and pharmaceutical industrial effluents. Microalgae have the potential to mitigate carbon dioxide and make use of the micronutrients that are present in the effluents. This review paper highlights the application of microalgae in WW remediation and the remediation of diverse types of pollutants commonly present in WW through different mechanisms, simultaneous resource recovery, and efficient microalgae-based co-culturing systems along with bottlenecks and prospects.

Keywords: Bioremediation; Co-culturing; Environmental applications; Microalgae; Wastewater treatment.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Figures

Image 1
Graphical abstract
Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Biorefinery of microalgal biomass after wastewater treatment for biofuel, biofertilizer, and high-value products.
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Bioremediation mechanisms of pollutants through microalgal metabolism.
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Wastewater treatment using microalgae.
Fig. 4
Fig. 4
Techniques for biomass and biofuel production during microalgal wastewater treatment.
Fig. 5
Fig. 5
Metal–microbe interactions mechanism during the bioremediation process.
Fig. 6
Fig. 6
Mechanisms involved in the removal of pharmaceutical compounds by microalgae.
Fig. 7
Fig. 7
Nitrogen removal mechanisms by microalgal cells in wastewater.
Fig. 8
Fig. 8
Synergic interaction between aerobic bacteria and microalgae [55].
Fig. 9
Fig. 9
Potential microalgal hydride cultivation systems applications in industrial and environmental applications.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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