Comparison of batch cultivation strategies for cost-effective biomass production of Micractinium inermum NLP-F014 using a blended wastewater medium.

Two competitive strategies, fed-batch and sequencing-batch cultivation, were compared in cost-effective biomass production of a high lipid microalgae, Micractinium inermum NLP-F014 using a blended wastewater medium. For fed-batch cultivations, additional nutrient was supplemented at day 2 (FB1) or consecutively added at day 2 and 4 (FB2). Through inoculum size test, 1.0g-DCWL was selected for the sequencing-batch cultivation (SB) where about 65% of culture was replaced with fresh medium every 2days. Both fed-batch cultivations showed the maximum biomass productivity of 0.95g-DCWLd, while average biomass productivity in SB was slightly higher as 0.96±0.08g-DCWLd. Furthermore, remained concentrations of organics (426mg-CODL), total nitrogen (15.4mg-NL) and phosphorus (0.6mg-PL) in SB were much lower than those of fed-batch conditions. The results suggested that SB could be a promising strategy to cultivate M. inermum NLP-F014 with the blended wastewater medium.