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Date Submitted: 09/07/2015 01:27 AM
Application of phycoremediation technology in the
treatment of wastewater from a leather-processing
chemical manufacturing facility
P Hanumantha Rao*, R Ranjith Kumar, BG Raghavan, VV Subramanian and V Sivasubramanian
Department of Plant Biology and Plant Biotechnology, R.K.M. Vivekananda College, Chennai 600 004, Tamil Nadu, India
Abstract
Phycoremediation is the use of algae for the removal or biotransformation of pollutants from wastewater. Employing this
technology in the treatment of industrial effluents presents an alternative to the current practice of using conventional methods, including physical and chemical methods. In the present study, the effluent from a leather-processing chemical manufacturing facility, situated at Ranipet, Tamil Nadu, India, was treated using the microalga, Chlorella vulgaris, which was
isolated from the effluent itself. The objective of this study was to treat the effluent as well as ETP (effluent treatment plant)
solid waste by phycoremediation (pilot-scale field study as well as laboratory study) and to analyse the physico-chemical
parameters before and after treatment. The results obtained showed that Chlorella vulgaris exhibited appreciable nutrient
scavenging properties under both laboratory and field conditions, although phycoremediation carried out in sunlight (field
study) gave better results. Moreover, the growth of Chlorella vulgaris was faster under field conditions.
Keywords: Phycoremediation, microalgae, Chlorella vulgaris, effluent, ETP solid
* To whom all correspondence should be addressed.
+91 9841910222; e-mail: dr.phrao@gmail.com
Received 23 April 2010; accepted in revised form 13 December 2010.
municipal wastewater in facultative or aerobic ponds (Aziz
and Ng, 1993; Mara and Pearson, 1986; Oswald, 1995). They
have been used for removing nitrogen and phosphorus from
wastewater (Oswald, 1988) and have the potential to be used to
remove various pollutants, including oxides of nitrogen (NOx)
(Nagase et al.,...