Development of an effective acidogenically digested swine manure-based algal system for improved wastewater treatment and biofuel and feed production

An effective semi-continuous process was developed to grow a locally isolated green microalga Chlorella sp. on acidogenically digested swine wastewater in bench scale for improved algal biomass production and waste nutrient removal using central composite design (CCD). The influences of two key parameters, namely wastewater dilution rate (DR) and hydraulic retention time (HRT), on algal biomass productivity and nutrient removal rates were investigated. The optimal parameters estimated from the significant second-order quadratic models (p < 0.05) were 8-fold DR and 2.26-d HRT. The cultivating experiment in a bench-scale multi-layer photobioreactor with the optimized conditions achieved stable algal productivity and nutrient removal rates, which fitted the predictive models well. Moreover, relatively high and stable protein and lipid contents (58.78% and 26.09% of the dry weight, respectively) were observed for the collected algae sample, indicating the suitability of the algal biomass as ideal feedstock for both biofuel and feed production.