Wastewater is contaminated water produced as a result of anthropogenic activities in agricultural, commercial, domestic, and industrial sectors.
Published in Chapter:
Microalgal Photobioreactors as an Integrated Approach for Simultaneous Wastewater Treatment, Carbon Sequestration, and Recovery of Valuable Resources
Priya Banerjee (Department of Environmental Studies, DDE, Rabindra Bharati University, India) and Aniruddha Mukhopadhyay (Department of Environmental Science, University of Calcutta, India)
Copyright: © 2021
|Pages: 22
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-7998-4921-6.ch008
Abstract
Unplanned and unmonitored growth of civilization and industries recorded in the previous decades have resulted in the introduction of several pollutants of emerging concern like pharmaceuticals and antibiotic drugs, endocrine disrupters, personal care products, etc. in adjacent aquatic environments. Moreover, the primary considerations of recent wastewater treatment strategies include energy neutrality and efficient recovery of valuable products as end/byproducts of the concerned process. The present study reviews such recent advances in designs, development, and implementation of algae based photobioreactors for simultaneous CO2 capture and treatment of effluents containing various types of emerging contaminants with negligible energy input. It also discusses the subsequent usage of algal biomass for production of value-added products like bioethanol, alginate, etc. This study has primarily addressed the potential and limitations of such photobioreactors for simultaneous achievement of wastewater remediation, CO2 sequestration, and bioenergy production with a zero-discharge concept.