New Publication from CTSA Fungal Filters Project
The ongoing CTSA project “Developing a Biofiltration System with Fungal Filters for Sustainable and Economical Harvesting of Microalgae” has published a review article in the journal Energies (*full citation below). Several authors of the article “Microalgal Consortia for Waste Treatment and Valuable Byproducts” are supported under the CTSA grant. The following is the abstract:
Microalgae have been considered a promising and sustainable candidate for wastewater treatment and valuable bioproducts, such as feedstocks for food, nutrients, and energy. However, many challenging bottlenecks, such as low biomass productivity, expensive biomass harvesting tech-niques, and inefficient extraction of biofuels restrict its large-scale commercial production. Symbiotic relationships between microalgae and bacteria, also known as microalgal consortia, have proven to be effective solutions for mitigating technical and economic limitations. The natural and artificial symbiotic microalgal consortia combine microorganisms with various metabolic activities, which leads to valuable biomass production and the removal of nutrients, pharmaceuticals, and personal care products (PPCP) from wastewater. Many microalgal consortia have been applied for various wastewater treatments with reduced energy costs and higher efficiency in recovering valuable re-sources. In this study we review the present research status and prospects of microalgal consortia, emphasizing the associated mechanism of microalgae consortia cooperative symbiosis and its studies on diverse environmental and biotechnological applications.
Click here to read the article
*Zhu, S., Higa, L., Barela, A., Lee, C., Chen, Y., Du, Z.* 2023. Microalgal Consortia for Waste Treatment and Valuable Bioproducts. Energies 16: 884.