Investigating the Performance of Native Microalgal Consortium for Nutrient Removal in Hydroponic Wastewater: Experimental Evaluation and Economic Prospects

Abstract

Given the global population growth and the increasing food demand in urban areas, novel strategies have emerged to enhance resource-efficient urban agriculture. One such approach is the utilization of greenhouses equipped with hydroponic systems, which offer improved control over plant growth and sustainability. However, effective management of nutrients in hydroponic agricultural systems remains an environmental challenge, warranting further exploration from the perspective of a circular economy. To address this challenge, cultivation of microalgae in hydroponic effluent is proposed as a bioremediation technique with the added advantage of producing nutrient-rich algal biomass, which can be valorized later. Therefore, in the present study a native microalgal consortium was cultivated using the effluent collected from a hydroponic system to produce microalgal biomass enriched with nutrients and lipids. Two different type of cultivation system (autotrophic and mixotrophic) was used for the microalgal cultivation with varying glucose concentrations ranging from 0 to 2 mg/ml and the systems’ performance was evaluated based on the biomass productivity, nutrient utilization and biomass quality. Further, a economic analysis is conducted to evaluate the economic feasibility of the proposed system. It is expected that such an approach will help in establishing a sustainable food production system from the circular economy perspective.