| The current energy and environmental situation has been pushing the development of alternative and renewable fuels. In this context, microalgae arises as a viable option for biodiesel production due to its high growth rate and oil content. This research work studies the bench scale feasibility of microalgae recovery from high salinity aquaculture effluents by ballasted flocculation based on NaOH induced coprecipitation of calcium and magnesium. The broad vision of this project is to make a triple convergence: biodiesel production, improve high yield aquaculture and water quality improvement. The findings show that the ballasted flocculation dramatically increased the floc settling velocity and the algae concentration in the sludge (two to three times as compared to the non-ballasted samples). The turbidity and suspended solids decreased significantly in the water column, and high removal efficiencies of ammonia nitrogen (77%) and orthophosphate (95%) were also obtained in the soluble phase, most likely due to volatilization and coprecipitation, respectively. |
