DefinePK

Abstract

The cultivating of freshwater microalgae namely Botryococcus sp. in outdoor conditions for phycoremediation of food processing wastewater was investigated. Dilution of wastewater and distilled water as pure sample (100%) and diluted sample (50%) of wastewater were examined. The highest growth of Botryococcus sp. in pure sample of food processing wastewater occurs at Day 12 at approximately 3.72×106 cell/mL with the highest removal of nitrate, phosphate and total organic carbon are 86.62%, 78.23% and 76.66%, respectively. Diluted (50%) food processing wastewater, the Botryococcus sp. was able to reach maximum growth at Day 13 at cell concentration approximately at 9.7×105 cell/mL. Significantly reduction for some nutrients such as nitrate (78.78%), biochemical oxygen demand (69.03%) and total organic carbon (67.93%) were observed. This finding proved good indication of Botryococcus sp. grows in food processing wastewater. The information from these findings is potentially useful for biotechnology industries for further development of bio-based product from microalgae biomass.