Abstract Description

South Africa hosts numerous food processing industries that produce substantial quantities of wastewater effluent during their operations. Effluent from these industries is characterized by elevated levels of chemical oxygen demand and nutrient concentrations, specifically nitrogen and phosphorus, which necessitate removal before discharge into aquatic environments. Bioremediation of wastewater using microalgae presents a sustainable solution for removing pollutants from poultry wastewater. Poultry wastewater has unfavorable characteristics, making it challenging to treat it using microalgae alone. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the potential of microalgae-bacteria co-culture to remove contaminants from poultry wastewater while concomitantly accumulating biomass. The wastewater-borne bacteria were isolated from poultry processing wastewater (PPWW) and identified using metagenomic tools. Wastewater-born bacteria were cocultured with microalgae and high nutrient removal efficiency and biomass accumulation were observed. Microalgae and bacteria coculture were optimized using response surface methodology to achieve significant nutrient removal efficiency, biomass recovery and composition. The biomass presented a large quantity of valuable metabolites suitable for use to produce biobased products. These findings contribute toward wastewater management and strengthen the effectiveness and resilience of poultry wastewater treatment by improving pollutant removal, reducing operating costs, and potentially increasing the value of byproducts.