India – Dr Karthik Rajendran, Department of Environmental Science, SRM University-AP, Andhra Pradesh, has published a paper on “Mechanism and challenges behind algae as a wastewater treatment choice for bioenergy production and beyond” in the Fuel journal, which is published by Elsevier. His research work encompasses wastewater treatment using algae for bioenergy production. In his words, “Conventional wastewater treatment systems use activated sludge processes. This process not only uses energy, but also results in emissions. Wastewater contains valuable nutrients and energy recovery options, which are the least explored. Algae helps in reducing emissions by sequestering carbon which leads to negative emissions. The research highlights different mechanisms of using algae for wastewater treatment.”
India as a country is under water-stress and the need for recycling and reusing water is on the rise. The wastewater contains essential nutrients for agriculture and plant growth which are limited resources available to us. Such limitations have inspired efforts to provide solutions to work on algae as a wastewater treatment method. Processes for the same are studied in this paper to comprehend its efficiency and for developing a sustainable choice for the industry. This work will enable the scientists and industrialists to appreciate the usage of algae as an option for wastewater treatment.
Dr Karthik further provides insights on his current research proceedings by saying, “We are currently working on recovering nutrients including phosphorus and nitrogen from wastewater. We are currently performing the theoretical evaluation of the amount of nutrients that can be recovered from different nutrient recovery technologies including microalgae. Such systems not only reduce emissions, but also reduce the amount of virgin materials used.”
Reference:
Geetanjali Yadav, Sabarathinam Shanmugam, Ramachandran Sivaramakrishnan, Deepak Kumar, Thangavel Mathimani, Kathirvel Brindhadevi, Arivalagan Pugazhendhi, Karthik Rajendran. Mechanism and challenges behind algae as a wastewater treatment choice for bioenergy production and beyond. Fuel, Volume 285, 2021, 119093,
ISSN 0016-2361, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fuel.2020.119093
