Coupling of Microalgae Cultivation with Anaerobic Digestion of Poultry Wastes: Toward Sustainable Value Added Bioproducts

Third generation biofuels and high-value bioproducts produced from microalgal biomass have been considered promising long-term sustainable alternatives for energy and/or food production, potentially decreasing greenhouse gas emissions. Microalgae as a source of biofuels have been widely studied for bioethanol/biodiesel/biogas production. However, critical research is needed in order to increase the efficiency of microalgae production from high-N agri-waste, not only for biofuels but also for bio-based products, and thus enhance its commercial viability. The growth in the poultry industry has led to increased chicken manure (CM), which are rich in ammonia, phosphate, potassium, and other trace elements. These constituents could be used as nutrients for growing microalgae. In this research, a two-stage (liquid–solid) anaerobic digester treating CM at 20 ± 1 °C was performed, and liquid digestate (leachate) obtained after the digestion process was used as a substrate to grow the microalgal strain Chlorella vulgaris CPCC 90. Considering the high-N content (NH3-N: 5314 mg/L; TKN: 6197 mg/L) in liquid digestate, different dilutions were made, using distilled water to obtain viz. 10%, 30%, 50%, 70%, 90%, and 100% of the digestate concentrations for the microalgae cultivation. Preliminary results showed that Chlorella vulgaris CPCC 90 was able to grow and utilize nutrients from a 10% diluted CM digestate. Future research is underway to enhance microalgal growth at higher digestate concentrations and to optimize the use of microalgae/microalgae-bacteria consortia for better adaptation to high-N content wastes. An AD-microalgae coupling scenario has been proposed for the circulation bioeconomy framework.