TY - JOUR
T1 - Microalgae-based wastewater treatment – Microalgae-bacteria consortia, multi-omics approaches and algal stress response
AU - Nagarajan, Dillirani
AU - Lee, Duu Jong
AU - Varjani, Sunita
AU - Lam, Su Shiung
AU - Allakhverdiev, Suleyman I.
AU - Chang, Jo Shu
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors (DN and JSC) gratefully acknowledge the financial support from the Taiwan Ministry of Science and Technology (grants MOST-110-2221-E-029-004-MY3 , 110-2621-M-029-001 , and 110-3116-F-006-003 ). SIA and JSC were supported by the joint grant RSF-MOST ( 22–44-08001 ). SIA was also supported by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation (project No. 122050400128-1 ).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 Elsevier B.V.
PY - 2022/11/1
Y1 - 2022/11/1
N2 - Sustainable environmental management is one of the important aspects of sustainable development goals. Increasing amounts of wastewaters (WW) from exponential economic growth is a major challenge, and conventional treatment methods entail a huge carbon footprint in terms of energy use and GHG emissions. Microalgae-based WW treatment is a potential candidate for sustainable WW treatment. The nutrients which are otherwise unutilized in the conventional processes are recovered in the beneficial microalgal biomass. This review presents comprehensive information regarding the potential of microalgae as sustainable bioremediation agents. Microalgae-bacterial consortia play a critical role in synergistic nutrient removal, supported by the complex nutritional and metabolite exchange between microalgae and the associated bacteria. Design of effective microalgae-bacteria consortia either by screening or by recent technologies such as synthetic biology approaches are highly required for efficient WW treatment. Furthermore, this review discusses the crucial research gap in microalgal WW treatment - the application of a multi-omics platform for understanding microalgal response towards WW conditions and the design of effective microalgal or microalgae-bacteria consortia based on genetic information. While metagenomics helps in the identification and monitoring of the microbial community throughout the treatment process, transcriptomics, proteomics and metabolomics aid in studying the algal cellular response towards the nutrients and pollutants in WW. It has been established that the integration of microalgal processes into conventional WW treatment systems is feasible. In this direction, future research directions for microalgal WW treatment emphasize the need for identifying the niche in WW treatment, while highlighting the pilot sale plants in existence. Microalgae-based WW treatment could be a potential phase in the waste hierarchy of circular economy and sustainability, considering WWs are a rich secondary source of finite resources such as nitrogen and phosphorus.
AB - Sustainable environmental management is one of the important aspects of sustainable development goals. Increasing amounts of wastewaters (WW) from exponential economic growth is a major challenge, and conventional treatment methods entail a huge carbon footprint in terms of energy use and GHG emissions. Microalgae-based WW treatment is a potential candidate for sustainable WW treatment. The nutrients which are otherwise unutilized in the conventional processes are recovered in the beneficial microalgal biomass. This review presents comprehensive information regarding the potential of microalgae as sustainable bioremediation agents. Microalgae-bacterial consortia play a critical role in synergistic nutrient removal, supported by the complex nutritional and metabolite exchange between microalgae and the associated bacteria. Design of effective microalgae-bacteria consortia either by screening or by recent technologies such as synthetic biology approaches are highly required for efficient WW treatment. Furthermore, this review discusses the crucial research gap in microalgal WW treatment - the application of a multi-omics platform for understanding microalgal response towards WW conditions and the design of effective microalgal or microalgae-bacteria consortia based on genetic information. While metagenomics helps in the identification and monitoring of the microbial community throughout the treatment process, transcriptomics, proteomics and metabolomics aid in studying the algal cellular response towards the nutrients and pollutants in WW. It has been established that the integration of microalgal processes into conventional WW treatment systems is feasible. In this direction, future research directions for microalgal WW treatment emphasize the need for identifying the niche in WW treatment, while highlighting the pilot sale plants in existence. Microalgae-based WW treatment could be a potential phase in the waste hierarchy of circular economy and sustainability, considering WWs are a rich secondary source of finite resources such as nitrogen and phosphorus.
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U2 - 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.157110
DO - 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.157110
M3 - Review article
C2 - 35787906
AN - SCOPUS:85134408650
SN - 0048-9697
VL - 845
JO - Science of the Total Environment
JF - Science of the Total Environment
M1 - 157110
ER -
