Project background Several policies and management measures have been in force to reduce nutrient and pollution runoff from diffuse and point sources in the Baltic Sea region. Many of them have shown positive impacts on recipient water bodies including the Baltic Sea and biodiversity recovering, however, at a cost of commercial and socio-economic efficiency. The production of clean water and biogas by using nutrients as inputs through a novel biotechnological process not only promises a reduction of private industrial costs but also environmental and social net benefits. The implementation of microalgae cultivation systems will have large positive impacts on the improvement of aquatic ecosystems allowing a market solution to optimal emission control on both diffuse and point pollution sources. Allocating abatement measures by an economic incentive and simultaneously allowing industrial development in the Baltic Sea region may significantly reduce the cost of emission control and eutrophication while increasing the supply of renewable energy. |
MICROALGAE will take into account the spatial distribution of nutrients arising from intensive agricultural, industrial and municipal wastewaters and scree the selected wastewaters against a number of microalgal species and consortia, in order to determine the best species/wastewater combinations. The screening will be performed using an innovative method based on microplates that allows testing of hundreds of different conditions at the same time, minimising the time of the analysis. The capacity of nutrient and micro pollutant uptake of the microalgae composition is subsequently used in the production of biogas. The most advantageous microalgae cultivation systems for wastewater treatment and biogas production will be chosen for the scaling up of an industrial process. |
Prof. Arvo Iital Project coordinator Project partners Tallinn University of Technology Estonia Technical University of Denmark Denmark SocEco Analysis & Education Sweden |