Nowadays the world is facing vulnerability problems related to food, energy and water demands. The challenges in those subsystems are intertwined and thus require inter-discipline approaches to address them. Bioresources offer promising solutions of the dilemma. Microalgae biomass is expected to become a superfood and a favorable energy feedstock and assist in supplying clean water and treat wastewater. Efficient mass production of microalgae, both during upstream and downstream processes, is thus a key process for providing high quality and affordable microalgae biomass. This paper covers recent progress in microalgae harvesting and dewatering by using osmotic driven membrane process, i.e., forward osmosis. Critical factors during forward osmosis process for microalgae harvesting and dewatering are discussed. Finally, perspective on further research directions and implementation scenarios of the forward osmosis are also provided.
Microalgae are microorganisms that have potential as biofuel feedstock since it has relatively high content of lipid. To be economically feasible, microalgae has to be cultivated in lower operational cost. Liquor of anaerobic sludge is one of the choices since it contents high concentration in nutrient. To boost its productivity, growth promoting bacteria (GPB) was added in the medium. The objective of this research is to observe the influence of GPB on the growth rate and oil content of the algae. The experiment used three treatment in respect to the dose of GPB added to the medium, and was done in triplicate. The three treatments are A3 (spiked with 3 ml of GPB inoculum), A6 (spiked with 6 ml of GPB inoculum) and A9 (spiked with 9 ml of GPB inoculum), and one more treatment as a control (A0). Result showed that the higher the dose of GPB added, the higher the lipid content of microalgae. For the growth rate of microalga, the highest growth rate was observed on A6 treatment, while the lowest one was observed on the control.
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