Chlorella vulgaris growth on pretreated cane sugar mill waste

Microalgal cultures offer interesting alternatives for wastewater treatment as secondary or tertiary biotreatments to remove inorganic nutrients, such as nitrogen and phosphorus, while producing potentially valuable biomass. Effluents from secondary domestic wastewater treatment plants and from anaerobically-digested animal wastes are the most common types of wastes used for the growth of microalgae. These effluents are well suited for the growth of algae because they contain high amounts of inorganic nutrients and relatively low amounts of organic compounds. In addition, recent publications indicate that microalgae and cyanobacteria can also be grown, given appropriate dilution, in other types of effluents, such as Spirulina on starch wastewater and Anacystis on dairy wastewater. The aim of the present work was to obtain the Chlorella vulgaris specific and maximum growth rates, growing on raw and pretreated cane sugar mill wastes.