Nagarajan Dillirani, Lee Duu-Jong, Varjani Sunita, Lam Su Shiung, Allakhverdiev Suleyman I, Chang Jo-Shu
Department of Chemical Engineering, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan; Department of Chemical Engineering, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan.
Department of Chemical Engineering, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan; Department of Mechanical Engineering, City University of Hong Kong, Kowloon Tang, Hong Kong.
Sci Total Environ. 2022 Nov 1;845:157110. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.157110. Epub 2022 Jul 1.
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.
可持续环境管理是可持续发展目标的重要方面之一。经济呈指数增长导致废水（WW）排放量不断增加，这是一个重大挑战，传统处理方法在能源使用和温室气体排放方面带来巨大的碳足迹。基于微藻的废水处理是可持续废水处理的一个潜在选择。传统工艺中未被利用的营养物质在有益的微藻生物质中得以回收。本综述提供了关于微藻作为可持续生物修复剂潜力的全面信息。微藻 - 细菌共生体在协同营养物去除中发挥关键作用，微藻与相关细菌之间复杂的营养和代谢物交换为其提供支持。为实现高效的废水处理，迫切需要通过筛选或合成生物学方法等最新技术来设计有效的微藻 - 细菌共生体。此外，本综述讨论了微藻废水处理中关键的研究差距——应用多组学平台来理解微藻对废水条件的反应以及基于遗传信息设计有效的微藻或微藻 - 细菌共生体。虽然宏基因组学有助于在整个处理过程中识别和监测微生物群落，但转录组学、蛋白质组学和代谢组学有助于研究藻类细胞对废水中营养物质和污染物的反应。已证实将微藻工艺整合到传统废水处理系统中是可行的。在此方向上，微藻废水处理的未来研究方向强调需要确定废水处理中的生态位，同时突出现存的中试规模工厂。考虑到废水是氮和磷等有限资源的丰富二次来源，基于微藻的废水处理可能是循环经济和可持续性废物层级中的一个潜在阶段。
