10.1007/s40095-022-00535-z

Effect of different concentrations of phosphorus and nitrogen on the growth of the microalgae Chlorella vulgaris

  • Lilian Tavares*1,
  • Matheus Haddad Nudi2,
  • Pedro Augusto Arroyo3,
  • Rodrigo Felipe Bedim Godoy4,
  • Elias Trevisan2,
  1. Environmental Engineer, Umuarama, PR, BR
  2. Department of Environment, State University of Maringá (UEM), Umuarama, PR, BR
  3. Department of Chemical Engineering, State University of Maringá, Maringá, PR, BR
  4. Centre de Recherche sur les Interactions Bassins Versants-Écosystèmes Aquatiques (RIVE), Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières, Trois-Rivières, QC, CA Interuniversity Research Group in Limnology (GRIL), Université de Montréal, Montreal, QC, CA

Published in Issue 2022-09-26

How to Cite

Tavares, L., Nudi, M. H., Arroyo, P. A., Godoy, R. F. B., & Trevisan, E. (2022). Effect of different concentrations of phosphorus and nitrogen on the growth of the microalgae Chlorella vulgaris. International Journal of Energy and Environmental Engineering, 14(4 (December 2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40095-022-00535-z
Crossref
Scopus
Google Scholar
Europe PMC

Abstract

Abstract The growth curve is an important characteristic to estimate microalgae biomass production for biofuel generation, since they can measure the variation between concentrations of limiting factors of culture medium. Therefore, this work aimed to evaluate the development of Chlorella vulgaris with triplicate cultivation of three different concentrations of nitrogen and phosphorus (Treatment 1: 0.50 g L −1 Ca(NO 3 ) 2 ·4H 2 O and 0.13 g L −1 KH 2 PO 4 , Treatment 2: 0.50 g L −1 Ca(NO 3 ) 2 ·4H 2 O and 0.39 g L −1 KH 2 PO 4 , Treatment 3: 1.50 g L −1 Ca(NO 3 ) 2 ·4H 2 O and 0.13 g L −1 KH 2 PO 4 ,). Growth curve using Gompertz model presented high R 2 (0.96 ≤  R 2  ≤ 0.99) in the three studied treatments. In the thirteenth day, turbidity in the treatment with higher nitrogen concentration (203.67 NTU) was 2.15 times higher than the first treatment (94.56 NTU) and 1.78 times higher than the treatment with higher level of phosphorus (113.9 NTU). We therefore observed a major biomass production, chlorophylls and carotenoids in the treatment with higher concentration of nitrogen, while in high levels of phosphorus the growth is not statistically significant from the first treatment with lower nitrogen and phosphorus concentration ( p value > 0.05). In the end of cultivation, there was an increase of 203.12% in chlorophyll-a in the third treatment compared to the first treatment and of 246.42% in comparison with the second treatment. For carotenoids, the highest increase was seen compared to the first treatment (192%) than for the second treatment (137.5%). Therefore the treatment with lower phosphorous concentration in the cultivation medium presented slightly higher chlorophyll concentration and smaller carotenoids with the treatment with higher phosphorus concentration. The ash content demonstrated that this microalgae have a great potential for energy use.

References

  1. Machado and Atsumi (2012) Cyanobacterial biofuel production 162(1) (pp. 50-56)
  2. Rodionova et al. (2017) Biofuel production: challenges and opportunities 42(12) (pp. 8450-8461)
  3. Hossain et al. (2019) Latest development in microalgae-biofuel production with nano-additives 12(1) (pp. 1-16)
  4. Chen et al. (2020) Microalgal biofuels in China: the past, progress and prospects 12(12) (pp. 1044-1065)
  5. Sheng et al. (2022) Combined effect of CO2 concentration and low-cost urea repletion/starvation in Chlorella vulgaris for ameliorating growth metrics, total and non-polar lipid accumulation and fatty acid composition
  6. Peralta-Yahya and Keasling (2010) Advanced biofuel production in microbes 5(2) (pp. 147-162)
  7. Miao and Wu (2006) Biodiesel production from heterotrophic microalgal oil (pp. 841-846)
  8. Sousa-Aguiar et al. (2014) Some important catalytic challenges in the bioethanol integrated biorefinery (pp. 13-23)
  9. Moshood et al. (2021) Microalgae biofuels production: a systematic review on socioeconomic prospects of microalgae biofuels and policy implications
  10. Wojciechowski et al. (2013) Univerdade Federal do Paraná
  11. Nagappan et al. (2019) Potential of two-stage cultivation in microalgae biofuel production (pp. 339-349)
  12. Salama et al. (2019) Can omics approaches improve microalgal biofuels under abiotic stress? 24(7) (pp. 611-624)
  13. Han et al. (2021) Cultivation of microalgae for lipid production using municipal wastewater (pp. 155-165)
  14. Pugazhendhi et al. (2020) Various potential techniques to reduce the water footprint of microalgal biomass production for biofuel—a review
  15. Correa et al. (2019) Global mapping of cost-effective microalgal biofuel production areas with minimal environmental impact 11(8) (pp. 914-929)
  16. Suparmaniam et al. (2019) Insights into the microalgae cultivation technology and harvesting process for biofuel production: a review
  17. Jaiswal et al. (2020) Ecological stress stimulus to improve microalgae biofuel generation: a review (pp. 48-54)
  18. Parente (2003) Editora Tecbio
  19. Andrade, D.S., Filho, A.C.: Microalgas de águas continentais (
  20. Microalgae of continental waters
  21. ). Londrina: IAPAR. v.3 (2014)
  22. Sforza et al. (2018) Microalgae-bacteria gas exchange in wastewater: how mixotrophy may reduce the oxygen supply for bacteria 25(28) (pp. 28004-28014)
  23. Romero-Martínez et al. (2019) Photocatalytic inactivation of microalgae: efficacy and cell damage evaluation by growth curves modeling 31(3) (pp. 1835-1843)
  24. González et al. (2021) Cultivation of autochthonous microalgae for biomass feedstock: Growth curves and biomass characterization for their use in biorefinery products 14(15)
  25. Islam et al. (2021) Data on growth, productivity, pigments and proximate composition of indigenous marine microalgae isolated from Cox's Bazar Coast
  26. Chuka-ogwude et al. (2021) Depth optimization of inclined thin layer photobioreactor for efficient microalgae cultivation in high turbidity digestate
  27. Hermadi, I., Setiadianto, I.R., Al Zahran, D.F.I., Simbolon, M.N., Saefurahman, G., Wibawa, D.S., Arkeman, Y.: Development of smart algae pond system for microalgae biomass production. In: IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science, vol. 749(1), p. 012068). IOP Publishing (2021)
  28. Thoré et al. (2021) Real-time monitoring of microalgal biomass in pilot-scale photobioreactors using nephelometry 9(9)
  29. Franco, A.L.C., Lôbo, I.P., Almeida J.A.N., Cruz, R.S., Menezes, R.S., Teixeira, C.M.L.L.: Biodiesel de microalgas: avanços e desafios (Microalgae Biofuel: advances and challenges). Química Nova (2013)
  30. Lourenço, S.O.: Cultivo de Microalgas Marinhas (Cultivation of marine microalgae). 1. ed. São Carlos: RIMA (2006)
  31. Leite et al. (2019) Microalgae cultivation for municipal and piggery wastewater treatment in Brazil
  32. Khanzada (2020) Phosphorus removal from landfill leachate by microalgae
  33. Wu et al. (2014) Microalgal species for sustainable biomass/lipid production using wastewater as resource: a review (pp. 675-688)
  34. Fadeyi et al. (2016) Assessment of biomass productivities of Chlorella vulgaris and Scenedesmus obliquus in defined media and municipal wastewater at varying concentration of nitrogen 8(2) (pp. 217-225)
  35. Arabian (2022) Investigation of Effective Parameters on the Productivity of Biomass and Bio-cement as a Soil Improver from Chlorella vulgaris https://doi.org/10.1080/01490451.2022.2078445
  36. Osorio et al. (2019) Nutrient removal efficiency of green algal strains at high phosphate concentrations 80(10) (pp. 1832-1843)
  37. Martins et al. (2022) Influence of Chlorella vulgaris on growth, digestibility and gut morphology and microbiota of weaned piglet 12(1) (pp. 1-12)
  38. Ren et al. (2022) Enhanced photoautotrophic growth of Chlorella vulgaris in starch wastewater through photo-regulation strategy
  39. El-Naggar et al. (2020) Production, extraction and characterization of Chlorella vulgaris soluble polysaccharides and their applications in AgNPs biosynthesis and biostimulation of plant growth https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-59945-w
  40. Lee (2008) United States of America by Cambridge University Press
  41. Dalal et al. (2021) Characterization of alginate extracted from Sargassum latifolium and its use in Chlorella vulgaris growth promotion and riboflavin drug delivery 11(1) (pp. 1-17)
  42. Watanabe (1960) List of algal strains in collection at the institute of applied microbiology, University of Tokyo (pp. 283-292)
  43. He et al. (2015) Effect of light intensity on physiological changes, carbon allocation and neutral lipid accumulation in oleaginous microalgae (pp. 219-228)
  44. He et al. (2015) Effect of light intensity o physiological changes, carbon allocation and neutral lipid accumulation in oleginous microalgae (pp. 219-228)
  45. Wychen and Laurens (2013) National Renewable Energy Laboratory
  46. Souza, G.S.: Introdução aos modelos de regressão linear e não-linear (Introduction to linear and non-linear regression models). Brasília: Embrapa- SPI/Embrapa-SEA, 489 (1998)
  47. Flores et al. (2020) A turbidity sensor development based on NL-PI observers: experimental application to the control of a Sinaloa’s River Spirulina maxima cultivation 18(1) (pp. 1349-1361)
  48. Ferrando et al. (2015) A quick and effective estimation of algal density by turbidimetry developed with Chlorella vulgaris cultures 34(2) (pp. 397-406)
  49. Aguirre et al. (2007) Ensayos de bioestimulación algal con diferentes relaciones nitrógeno: fósforo, bajo condiciones de laboratorio 6(11) (pp. 11-21)
  50. Praveen et al. (2018) Biochemical responses from biomass of isolated Chlorella sp., under different cultivation modes: non-linear modelling of growth kinetics (pp. 489-496)
  51. Hanief, S., Prasakti L., Budiman, A., Cayono, R.B., Pradana, Y.S.: Growth kinetic of Botryococcus braunii microalgae using logistic and gompertz models. In: AIP Conference Proceedings, vol. 2296(1), p. 020065. AIP Publishing LLC (2020)
  52. Blanco et al. (2021) Cultivation of Chlorella vulgaris in anaerobically digested gelatin industry wastewater 21(5) (pp. 1953-1965)
  53. Ajala and Alexander (2020) Assessment of Chlorella vulgaris, Scenedesmus obliquus, and Oocystis minuta for removal of sulfate, nitrate, and phosphate in wastewater 11(3) (pp. 311-326)
  54. Sousa et al. (2021) Microalgae-based bioremediation of wastewaters-Influencing parameters and mathematical growth modelling
  55. Mata et al. (2010) Microalgae for biodiesel production and other applications: a review (pp. 217-232)
  56. Pereira and Branco (2007) Influência do nitrato e fosfato no crescimento de Schizomeris leibleinii Kützing (Chaetophorales, Chlorophyta) (pp. 155-162)
  57. Kolozlowska-Serenos et al. (2000) Involvement of glycolate metabolism in acclimation of Chlorella vulgaris cultures to low phosphate supply 38(9) (pp. 727-734)
  58. Yaakob et al. (2021) Influence of nitrogen and phosphorus on microalgal growth, biomass, lipid, and fatty acid production: an overview 10(2)
  59. Beuckels et al. (2015) Nitrogen availability influences phosphorus removal in microalgae-based wastewater treatment (pp. 98-106)
  60. Chen et al. (2018) Nitrogen and phosphorus removal from anaerobically digested wastewater by microalgae cultured in a novel membrane photobioreactor 11(1) (pp. 1-11)
  61. Slinksienė et al. (2022) Use of microalgae biomass for production of granular nitrogen biofertilizers 15(2) (pp. 415-425)
  62. Zhuang et al. (2018) Effects of nitrogen and phosphorus concentrations on the growth of microalgae Scenedesmus. LX1 in suspended-solid phase photobioreactors (ssPBR) (pp. 47-53)
  63. Fu et al. (2019) Hormesis effects of phosphorus on the viability of Chlorella regularis cells under nitrogen limitation 12(1) (pp. 1-9)
  64. Mostert and Grobbelaar (1987) The influence of nitrogen and phosphorus on algal growth and quality in outdoor mass algal cultures 13(4) (pp. 219-233)
  65. Figler et al. (2021) Effects of nutrient content and nitrogen to phosphorous ratio on the growth, nutrient removal and desalination properties of the green alga Coelastrum morus on a laboratory scale 14(8)
  66. Kozłowska-Szerenos et al. (2004) Enhancement of photosynthetic O2 evolution in Chlorella vulgaris under high light and increased CO2 concentration as a sign of acclimation to phosphate deficiency 42(5) (pp. 403-409)
  67. Jalal et al. (2013) Growth and total carotenoid, chlorophyll a and chlorophyll b of tropical microalgae (Isochrysis sp.) in laboratory cultured conditions 13(1)
  68. Markou and Nerantzis (2013) Microalgae for high-value compounds and biofuels production: a review with focus on cultivation under stress conditions (pp. 1532-1542)
  69. Spolaore et al. (2006) Commercial applications of microalgae (pp. 87-96)
  70. Rrodrigues, T.T.M., Seckler, M.M.: Investigação dos produtos de pirólise da microalga
  71. Chlorella vulgaris
  72. usando PY-GC/MS (Investigation of the pyrolysis products of the microalgae Chlorella vulgaris using PY-GC/MS). Anais do XV Safety, Health and Environment World Congress. Porto, Portugal, 2015, pp. 298–301 (2015)
  73. Braga, R.M., Almeida, H.N., Calixto, G.Q., Freitas, J.C.O., Melo, D.M.A., Resende, F.M.: Caracterização energética e pirólise rápida Py-CG/MS das microalgas chlorella vulgaris e spirulina platensis (Energetic characterization and rapid Py-CG/MS pyrolysis of the microalgae C
  74. hlorella vulgaris
  75. and S
  76. pirulina platensis
  77. ) . In: 8° Congresso Brasileiro de Pesquisa e Desenvolvimento em Petróleo e Gás, 2002, Curitiba, PR. Anais do 8° PDPETRO. Curitiba: [s.n.] (2002)
  78. Liu et al. (2015) Determination of ash content and concomitant acquisition of cell compositions in microalgae via thermogravimetric (TG) analysis (pp. 149-155)