Chlorella vulgaris and Arthrospira platensis growth in a continuous membrane photobioreactor using industrial winery wastewater

The rapid development of urbanization and industrialization leads to the production of large amounts of wastewater all over the world, which could be exploited to grow microalgae, thereby reducing their cultivation costs and making biofuel production more feasible. In this research work, a co-culture of Chlorella vulgaris and Arthrospira platensis was grown in a continuous flow column membrane photobioreactor using 20% (v/v) of winery wastewater as a medium with the aim of reducing its polluting impact. Three different hydraulic retention times were investigated, namely 4.6, 2,0 and, 1.4 days. Chemical oxygen demand was reduced by more than 75%, and a biomass concentration higher than 4 g Dry Weight/L was obtained with a lipid content higher than 20 g Lipid/100 g Dry Weight. Fatty acids were mainly saturated. The results obtained suggest that C. vulgaris and A. platensis can grow in winery wastewaters, leading to a low-cost biomass production and to a reduction in the environmental impact of the industrial effluent used in this study. [Display omitted] •Chlorella vulgaris and Arthrospira platensis can grow in winery wastewaters.•The microalgal co-culture reached high concentrations in presence of wastewaters.•The Chemical Oxygen Demand removal by microalgal co-culture was up to 75%.•Microalgal co-culture can treat winery wastewater fed continuously to the system.