Biotreatment of Brewery Wastewater Using the Filamentous Cyanobacterium Leptolyngbya sp.

Brewery wastewater is generated from the beer brewing process in large amounts (4-8 m3 per m3 of beer produced). Brewery wastewater consists of high organic matter content, significant nitrogen and phosphorus concentrations and easily biodegraded compounds. Even though most biological treatment technologies applied to brewery wastewaters include the use of bacteria, cyanobacteria (photosynthetic microorganisms) constitute attractive means for sustainable and low cost wastewater treatment producing high biomass concentration. In this study, the capacity of a filamentous cyanobacterium Leptolyngbya sp. for the pollutants removal from brewery wastewater was investigated coupled with objective to determine its proteins, carbohydrates and lipids content after wastewater treatment. The experiments were conducted in batch mode under non-sterile conditions in lab-scale photobioreactors. The removal rates of nitrate, ammonium, orthophosphates, total phosphorus and chemical oxygen demand (COD) were almost 49.2%, 100%, 57.1%, 57.9% and 24.3%, respectively, within the first 7 days of cultivation. The maximum biomass concentration was 350 mg/L, while the biomass produced was consisted of approximately 53.5% carbohydrates, 20.2% proteins and 10% lipids. Therefore, the treatment of brewery wastewater using cyanobacteria species could be effective, while the cyanobacterial biomass could be used in numerous fields for diverse applications