Abstract:
Excessive utilization of fossil fuels to meet ever-growing population demands
threatens the global environment and societal sustainability. In this perspective, microalgae
have emerged as a potential alternative. One of the main objectives is to address the
challenge of using fresh water to treat wastewater. The problem could be addressed by
mixing it with another wastewater with high COD and low light absorption. The results
demonstrate that a maximum biomass yield of 2.83±0.04 g L
-1 was achieved in 75% textile
wastewater diluted with 25% Juice wastewater. To further assess the feasibility of process
microalgae cultivated at a pilot scale. The results show that 1.7g L-1
of algae biomass was
produced. To convert microalgae/waste resources into biodiesel, a new microbubble
mediated mass transfer technique was developed. The results show that higher conversion
of 89.90 % in 30 min. To further increase the efficiency, a new heterogeneous catalyst
([HMIM][HSO4]/Bio-MOF) has been synthesized and integrated with microbubble
technology achieving a higher conversion of 92 ±4% in 30 min. To further prove the
effectiveness of this process, biodiesel production was carried out at an intermediate scale
achieving a conversion of 99.45% in 60 min. This work successfully demonstrated the
potential of microalgae to treat wastewater without diluting it with fresh water and convert
microalgae/waste into biodiesel using microbubble-mediated mass transfer technology.
The developed wastewater treatment and biodiesel production methods were successfully
investigated on both lab and pilot scales.
