Purifying industrial waste water and utilising the algae biomass

Aim and goal

To implement and demonstrate in full scale the long-term technological and economic feasibility of a sustainable, innovative solution for the treatment of high salinity wastewater from the food&dairy industry.

Challenge

The project is devoted to finding ideal microbial consortia for the purification of wastewaters with different salinities and profiles of organic pollutants, but also to find growth conditions, pond designs and harvesting methods that give optimal purification capacity and yield of spent algae

Solution

Halotolerant microalgae can solve the shortcomings of conventional treatments in dealing with this kind of wastewater. The three companies behind the demo plants are important for setting the requirements within the project, but also the companies and research organisations who transform the biomass to valuable chemicals and products. A high level of competence regarding construction, sensor technology, extraction and chemical synthesis is complemented by RISE’s resources for techno-economic evaluations and sustainability assessments.

Effect

The food and dairy industry can, in a cost-effective way, purify their wastewaters which is otherwise difficult to handle with conventional purification processes. The biomass of spent microalgae subsequently represent a value which is utlized by transformation to new chemicals and products.