Sustainable production of bio-crude oil via hydrothermal liquefaction of symbiotically grown biomass of microalgae-bacteria coupled with effective wastewater treatment.

ABSTRACT: The study demonstrates a sustainable process for production of bio-crude oil via hydrothermal liquefaction of microbial biomass generated through co-cultivation of microalgae and bacteria coupled with wastewater remediation. Biomass concentration and wastewater treatment efficiency of a tertiary consortium (two microalgae and two bacteria) was evaluated on four different wastewater samples. Total biomass concentration, total nitrogen and COD removal efficiency was found to be 3.17?g?L^-1, 99.95% and 95.16% respectively when consortium was grown using paper industry wastewater in a photobioreactor under batch mode. Biomass concentration was enhanced to 4.1?g?L^-1 through intermittent feeding of nitrogen source and phosphate. GC-MS and FTIR analysis of bio-crude oil indicates abundance of the hydrocarbon fraction and in turn, better oil quality. Maximum distillate fraction of 30.62% lies within the boiling point range of 200-300?°C depicting suitability of the bio-crude oil for conversion into diesel oil, jet fuel and fuel for stoves.

SUBMITTER: Goswami G 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6802377 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature