Flow-way water depth affects algal productivity and nutrient uptake in a filamentous algae nutrient scrubber
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Flow-way water depth affects algal productivity and nutrient uptake in a filamentous algae nutrient scrubber Donna L. Sutherland 1
&
Joel Burke 1 & Peter J. Ralph 1
Received: 4 June 2020 / Revised and accepted: 22 September 2020 # Springer Nature B.V. 2020
Abstract Filamentous algae treatment systems can provide cost-effective treatment of a range of wastewater types. In the current study, filamentous algae nutrient scrubbers (FANS), treating anaerobically digested food-waste centrate, were used to investigate the role of flow-way water depth (5, 10 and 15 mm) on productivity and nutrient removal. The study found that the proportion of light reaching the surface of the filamentous algae mat (Emat) increased with decreasing water depth, with 5-mm depth significantly higher than 10 mm (p < 0.05) and 15 mm (p < 0.01). On all sampling occasions, both the total solids and ash-free dry mass biomass productivities, as well as the chlorophyll a biomass, were all significantly higher (p < 0.01) on the FANS operated at 5 mm depth compared with 15 mm. Both the percentage carbon (C) and percentage phosphorus (P) were significantly higher in the biomass from 15 mm compared with 5 and 10 mm deep. Percentage nitrogen (N) content did not differ significantly between treatments but biological nitrogen removal rates (particulate N removed m−2 day−1) were significantly higher on the 5-mm-deep FANS compared with the 10 mm deep (p < 0.05) and the 15 mm deep (p < 0.01). The C:N ratio of algal biomass varied but not with depth whereas the C:P ratio significantly decreased (p < 0.01) with increasing water depth. These results indicate the important roles that light and water depth play on the performance of FANS. Keywords Periphyton . Filamentous algae . Microalgal productivity . Nutrient removal . Microalgal treatment systems . Food-waste centrate
Introduction Worldwide, the discharge of poorly treated, or untreated, wastewaters including from agricultural, commercial, industrial and municipal sources, has led to excess nutrients, heavy metals, toxins and emerging contaminants polluting the aquatic environment (Sutherland and Craggs 2017). This pollution negatively impacts the public health, economic, social, environmental and aesthetic values of these aquatic systems and it is now recognized that there is an increasing need to mitigate this pollution (Sutherland et al. 2015a). While mechanical
* Donna L. Sutherland [email protected] Joel Burke [email protected] Peter J. Ralph [email protected] 1
University of Technology Sydney, Climate Change Cluster, Ultimo, NSW 2007, Australia
wastewater treatment is recognized as the industry gold standard, for many towns, rural communities and developing countries, such systems are not an economically viable option and alternative, cost-effective systems are required. Filamentous algae, coupled with aerobic bacteria, have been examined as cost-effective systems for the treatment of a range of pollutants from municipal wastewater (Craggs et al. 1996, Liu et al. 2020), agric
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