Engineering Study of a Pilot Scale Process Plant for Microalgae-Oil Production Utilizing Municipal Wastewater and Flue Gases: Fukushima Pilot Plant

Sasongko, Nugroho Adi; Noguchi, Ryozo; Itô, Junko; Demura, Mikihide; Ichikawa, Sosaku; Nakajima, Mitsutoshi; Watanabe, Makoto M.

doi:10.3390/en11071693

Cited by 22 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 49 publications

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“…Overview of the insufficient wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) in operation at the seven selected countries (Algeria, Burkina Faso, Egypt, Ghana, Morocco, Senegal, and Tunisia) [3]. Conventional domestic wastewater treatment systems (including AS reactors and trickling filters) [5] are labor-and energy-intensive, often requiring expensive infrastructure and regular maintenance, leaving the municipalities of rural communities in developing countries unable to treat the domestic inflow [6]. This led to the need and emergence of cost-effective wastewater treatment systems (also referred to as ecotechnologies), which require less infrastructure and use little or no energy [7].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Comparative Study of Improvement of Phycoremediation Using a Consortium of Microalgae in Municipal Wastewater Treatment Pond Systems as an Alternative Solution to Africa’s Sanitation Challenges

Oberholster

Steyn²,

Botha

2021

Processes

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The reuse of wastewater has been observed as a viable option to cope with increasing water stress in Africa. The present case studies evaluated the optimization of the process of phycoremediation as an alternative low-cost green treatment technology in two municipality wastewater treatment pond systems that make up the largest number of domestic sewage treatment systems on the African continent. A consortium of specific microalgae (Chlorella vulgaris and Chlorella protothecoides) was used to improve the treatment capacity of domestic wastewater at two operational municipality wastewater pond systems under different environmental conditions in South Africa. Pre- and post-phycoremediation optimization through mass inoculation of a consortium of microalgae, over a period of one year under different environmental conditions, were compared. It was evident that the higher reduction of total phosphates (74.4%) in the effluent, after treatment with a consortium of microalgae at the Motetema pond system, was possibly related to (1) the dominance of the algal taxa C. protothecoides (52%), and to a lesser extent C. vulgaris (36%), (2) more cloudless days, (3) higher air temperature, and (4) a higher domestic wastewater strength. In the case of the Brandwag pond treatment system, the higher reduction of total nitrogen can possibly be related to the dominance of C. vulgaris, different weather conditions, and lower domestic wastewater strength. The nutrient reduction data from the current study clearly presented compelling evidence in terms of the feasibility for use of this technology in developing countries to reduce nutrient loads from domestic wastewater effluent.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Comparative Study of Improvement of Phycoremediation Using a Consortium of Microalgae in Municipal Wastewater Treatment Pond Systems as an Alternative Solution to Africa’s Sanitation Challenges

Oberholster

Steyn²,

Botha

2021

Processes

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“…Microalgae is referred to as one of the best candidates for biofuel production, a source of renewable energy. Fuel production from microalgae in the Minamisoma pilot plant measuring 0.1 ha has been reported, which can facilitate 50 m 3 /day in an open raceway pond (ORP) [1]. Simulation was conducted based on experimental results that considered profitability, energy balance, and emission of environmental load (GHG).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The bottlenecks in profitability were nutrients and freshwater for algae growth. However, if wastewater were used for microalgae cultivation, costs could be reduced from 1605.9 JPY (14.1 USD: the exchange in Table A1 in Appendix A was used)/kg-biocrude-wet to 160.6 JPY (1.4 USD: Table A1)/kg-biocrude-wet [1]. Moreover, to fulfill energy demand, a bottleneck in energy balance was the energy requirement for circulating water in the ORP, the hydrothermal-liquefaction (HTL) process, and the centrifugation process.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reduction in Energy Requirement and CO2 Emission for Microalgae Oil Production Using Wastewater

et al. 2020

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A comparative evaluation of energy requirement and CO2 emission was performed for native polyculture microalgae oil production in a wastewater treatment plant (WWTP). The wastewater provided nutrients for algae growth. Datasets of microalgae oil production and their details were collected from the Minamisoma pilot plant. Environmental impact estimation from direct energy and material balance was analyzed using SimaPro® v8.0.4. in two scenarios: existing and algal scenarios. In the existing scenario, CO2 emission sources were from wastewater treatment, sludge treatment, and import of crude oil. In the algal scenario, CO2 emission with microalgae production was considered using wastewater treatment, CO2 absorption from growing algae, and hydrothermal liquefaction (HTL) for extraction, along with the exclusion of exhausted CO2 emission for growing algae and use of discharged heat for HTL. In these two scenarios, 1 m3 of wastewater was treated, and 2.17 MJ higher heating value (HHV) output was obtained. Consequently, 2.76 kg-CO2 eq/m3-wastewater in the existing scenario and 1.59 kg-CO2 eq/m3-wastewater in the algal scenario were calculated. In the HTL process, 21.5 MJ/m3-wastewater of the discharged heat energy was required in the algal scenario. Hence, the efficiency of the biocrude production system will surpass those of the WWTP and imported crude oil.

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“…However, whether edible or inedible, land plants require arable land concomitant with a large amount of freshwater resources and have relatively low lipid productivity for biodiesel production. Thus, they lack in sustainability for requirements (1), ( 3), ( 4), ( 5), (6), (11), and (12) in Table 1. Microalgae potentially have more advantages than land plants for requirement (1) to (7).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, the differences of biochemical composition combined with various optimal conditions make general prediction and operation of HTL difficult [4]. Additionally, developments on conventional HTL processes to increase EROI, lower capital and process costs, and accelerate CO 2 reduction through technology innovation are needed [4][5][6][7][8]. The development of innovative HTL technology to solve these issues is steadily progressing [4,9,10].…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Biocrude Oil Production by Integrating Microalgae Polyculture and Wastewater Treatment: Novel Proposal on the Use of Deep Water-Depth Polyculture of Mixotrophic Microalgae

Watanabe

Isdepsky

2021

Energies

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Microalgae have attracted significant attention worldwide as one of the most promising feedstock fossil fuel alternatives. However, there are a few challenges for algal fuels to compete with fossil fuels that need to be addressed. Therefore, this study reviews the R&D status of microalgae-based polyculture and biocrude oil production, along with wastewater treatment. Mixotrophic algae are free to some extent from light restrictions using organic matter and have the ability to grow well even in deep water-depth cultivation. It is proposed that integrating the mixotrophic microalgae polyculture and wastewater treatment process is the most promising and harmonizing means to simultaneously increase capacities of microalgae biomass production and wastewater treatment with a low land footprint and high robustness to perturbations. A large amount of mixotrophic algae biomass is harvested, concentrated, and dewatered by combining highly efficient sedimentation through flocculation and energy efficient filtration, which reduce the carbon footprint for algae fuel production and coincide with the subsequent hydrothermal liquefaction (HTL) conversion. HTL products are obtained with a relatively low carbon footprint and separated into biocrude oil, solid, aqueous, and gas fractions. Algae biomass feedstock-based HTL conversion has a high biocrude oil yield and quality available for existing oil refineries; it also has a bioavailability of the recycled nitrogen and phosphorus from the aqueous phase of algae community HTL. The HTL biocrude oil represents higher sustainability than conventional liquid fuels and other biofuels for the combination of greenhouse gas (GHG) and energy return on investment (EROI). Deep water-depth polyculture of mixotrophic microalgae using sewage has a high potential to produce sustainable biocrude oil within the land area of existing sewage treatment plants in Japan to fulfill imported crude oil.

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Engineering Study of a Pilot Scale Process Plant for Microalgae-Oil Production Utilizing Municipal Wastewater and Flue Gases: Fukushima Pilot Plant

Cited by 22 publications

References 49 publications

A Comparative Study of Improvement of Phycoremediation Using a Consortium of Microalgae in Municipal Wastewater Treatment Pond Systems as an Alternative Solution to Africa’s Sanitation Challenges

A Comparative Study of Improvement of Phycoremediation Using a Consortium of Microalgae in Municipal Wastewater Treatment Pond Systems as an Alternative Solution to Africa’s Sanitation Challenges

Reduction in Energy Requirement and CO2 Emission for Microalgae Oil Production Using Wastewater

Biocrude Oil Production by Integrating Microalgae Polyculture and Wastewater Treatment: Novel Proposal on the Use of Deep Water-Depth Polyculture of Mixotrophic Microalgae

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