RT journal article
T1 Process for nutrient recycling from intensive aquaculture through microalgae-bacteria consortium
A1 Perales Pérez, Ángela
A1 Macías Sánchez, María Dolores
A1 Ruiz González, Jesús
A1 Perales Vargas-Machuca, José Antonio
A1 Garrido Pérez, Carmen
A2 Ingeniería Química y Tecnología de Alimentos
A2 Química Analítica
A2 Tecnologías del Medio Ambiente
K1 Harvesting
K1 Intensive marine aquaculture
K1 Microalgae - bacteria consortium
K1 bacteria consortium
K1 Nutrient removal
K1 Sand filtration
AB This work studies a biological process based on a microalgae-bacteria consortium for recycling nutrients in a recirculating aquaculture system (RAS) implanted in an intensive marine aquaculture farm. Additionally, some techniques were used for microalgae biomass harvesting and tested the effectiveness of filtration by a column with multi-layer sand to reduce the solids concentrations in the effluent. The consortium was grown in photobioreactors in batch and semi-continuous operation modes using the solids concentrated stream generated in the RAS system. The semi-continuous operation showed a high percentage of TDN and TDP removal, achieving final concentrations of 1.09 ± 0.02 mg·L−1 and 0.01 ± 0.01 mg·L−1, respectively, while DOC was reduced to 3.87 ± 0.06 mg·L−1. The values of productivity 44 ± 9 mg TSS·L−1 indicated that the studied stream is a suitable culture medium for the growth of the microalgae-bacteria consortium. A combination of harvesting techniques was studied, coagulation-flocculation-settling and coagulation-flocculation-flotation. The first step was to optimise the dose of FeCl3 through the coagulation-flocculation test to pre-concentrate the biomass generated, achieving an optimal dose of 0.106 mg Fe·mg TSS−1. Then, two separation processes were applied to the stream and compared: settling and flotation. The maximum removal efficiency (90.2 ± 0.3 %) was obtained in the settling process, so the coagulation-flocculation-settling was select as the best combination of harvesting techniques. Finally, sand filtration was studied as an effluent refining process to improve solids reduction of the water obtained in the harvesting step resulting in an effluent with 17.18 ± 1.49 mg TSS·L−1. The proposed sequence process is capable of recycling nutrients from an intensive marine aquaculture farm by using these resources via transformation into microalgae biomass and generating quality effluent.
PB Elsevier
SN 0048-9697
YR 2023
FD 2023-08-01
LK http://hdl.handle.net/10498/31207
UL http://hdl.handle.net/10498/31207
LA eng
DS Repositorio Institucional de la Universidad de Cádiz
RD 10-nov-2026