Feasibility Studies on Growth of Blue Green Algae in Tannery Wastewater for Production of Bio Crude

Abstract

Biodiesel is a substitute for diesel fuel, which can be extracted from biological sources such as animal fats, seeds, vegetable oils and other industrial wastes. Production of biodiesel from wastes is a novel technique since it results in generation of fuel on par with waste stabilization. Wastes are used as a feedstock for some microorganisms which produce biomass. Then the biomass is converted to energy source like biodiesel. Therefore pollution is avoided by waste reduction and making it into biodiesel which is a potential alternative to petroleum based fuels and plant or animal fat derived fuels. In this study, tannery wastewater was used as a substrate for growing blue-green algae. The tannery wastewater was collected from E. K. M. Leather Processing Company, Erode and characterization of wastewater was done. Chlorella sp. is suitable for the growth in tannery wastewater because of its high salinity. Synthesis of microbial lipid from Chlorella sp. and bio-crude recovery was studied. 40% of its dry weight is of bio-crude, which can be further converted in to biodiesel using trans-esterification. 4.6g/l lipid yield obtained from tannery wastewater in the optimum condition of pH 8 and 250C temperature.

Keywords: Biomolecules, Carbonate, Cyanobacteria, Lipids, Nitrogen, Tannery effluent.

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