Feasibility of Nutrient Removal and Recovery from Abattoir Wastewater Using Microalgae

Abstract

The wastewater produced from the meat-processing industry is a rich source of nutrients which can be recovered using microalgae. This study assesses the potential of microalgae cultivation on abattoir wastewater based on its nutrient removal capacity from wastewater, biomass production and greenhouse gas (GHG) emission savings potential. Designing the treatment ponds at the recycling rate of almost 80% of treated water results in high-quality water containing less than 1 mg/L nitrogen and 12 mg/L phosphorus. At the same time, the process can produce valuable algal biomass (≈2 kg/m3 of abattoir wastewater) which can be further dewatered to make the process either economically self-sufficient or profit-making depending upon the use of algal biomass. It can finally avoid GHG emissions from 3.46 kg CO2-eq to 6.11 kg CO2-eq per m3 of wastewater treated depending upon the credit of the product displaced by the algal biomass.

Keywords

• waste-to-profit
• wastewater treatment
• anaerobic digestor effluent
• nutrient recovery