Tertiary treatment of aerobically digested landfill leachate and simultaneous carbon dioxide capture using microalgae

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The project proposes to evaluate a tertiary polishing treatment of a landfill leachate originating from an aerobic digestion process. The landfill leachate will serve as a liquid nutrient feedstock to culture microalgae, in particular Chlorella vulgaris and Dunaliella salina in a covered raceway pond type photo-bioreactor configuration. The evolved carbon dioxide from the aerobic digestion process will also serve as carbon feed to the photosynthetic microalgae. The evaluation of the process will be carried out over a period of 6 months with the help of one research assistant. An experimental raceway pond system will be constructed and investigated at Western in a configuration which simulates an on-site field environment. The effect of various parameters such as nutrient load, carbon dioxide sparging rate and loading, light intensity, temperature and pH etc. will be investigated. The aim of these studies will be to determine optimum operational parameters which maximize algal cell yield. The results will provide an integrated approach to produce clean water, capture carbon dioxide and provide value in the form of microalgae.