Potential of Microalgae Growth in Laundry Effluents for Phosphate Phytoremediation

Abstract

The objective of this study is as a means of developing large-scale technology for phosphate wastewater management. Laundry activities are one of the largest producing phosphate contaminants by the use of detergent. Various contaminants, such as over nutrients of phosphate, chemicals and pathogens which can pollute the environment and endanger human health. The experiment was conducted by batch method by using water in a stationary or non-flowing state. The results showed that combining phytoremediation technology and monitoring microalgae growth phase could reduce TSS, pH, BOD₅, COD and phosphate values in wastewater. The treatment in this study was to combine two species of microalgae. Studies have shown that the optimal pH for microalgae is in the range of 7.5. Providing moderate amounts of aeration and CO₂ promoted algal growth. The decrease in phosphate levels was 27.86% with the best phase observation at the fourth hour of exponential time. Water quality evaluation of BOD, COD and TSS parameters had a decrease of 51.87%, 51.06% and 52%, respectively. Thus, it can be concluded that the combining of two species of microalgaes in the exponential growth phase have been proven to affect and improve the quality of wastewater from laundry waste and meet the quality standards.