Attenuation of Nitrates, Antibiotics and Pesticides from Groundwater Using Immobilised Microalgae-Based Systems
Abstract
Groundwater pollution by nitrates and organic microcontaminants (OMCs) such as pesticides and antibiotics has increased in recent years due to the intensification of agriculture and livestock activities. Here we demonstrate, for the first time, the suitability of using microalgae immobilised in different materials (luffa sponge and polyurethane foam) to attenuate nitrates, antibiotics (sulfacetamide, sulfamethazine, and sulfamethoxazole), pesticides (bromacil, atrazine, diuron, bentazone, and mecoprop) from groundwater in two operational modes (batch and continuous-feeding). The results from the batch experiments show that OMC kinetic removal rates ranged from 0.01 to 0.18 d-1, with half-lives from 4 to 69 days. Immobilised microalgae in luffa and foam materials in the batch study was found to enhance the attenuation of selected OMCs from 36% to 51%, on average, after 10 operational days. Microalgae reactors in continuous-feeding operational mode out performed batch mode in terms of OMC removal (65% vs. 50%, on average) at a hydraulic residence time (HRT) of 8 days, whereas nitrate removal was greater in the batch experiments (81 vs. 48%, on average). OMC attenuation showed a high HRT dependence, but immobilised reactors were more resilient to the decrease in HRT. Further studies are needed, including the assessment of transformation products as well as the scale-up of the system to check the feasibility of the technology. Nevertheless, we expect our assay to be the starting point for the applicability of immobilised-microalgae-based systems for the treatment of polluted groundwater.
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Chlorella sp. and Spirulina (Arthrospira) sp. can treat many types of wastewaters, including municipal, aquaculture, swine, olive oil milling, distillery, confectionary, brine tapioca, tofu, rubber, paper mill, dye wastewaters, agricultural run-offs, and groundwaters.
“Many examples of wastewater treatment by Chlorella sp. and Spirulina (Arthrospira) sp. have been published, as these can treat many types of wastewaters, including municipal, aquaculture, swine, olive oil milling, distillery, confectionary, brine tapioca, tofu, rubber, paper mill, dye wastewaters, agricultural run-offs, and groundwaters [203,209,210,211,212].”
From Emerging Applications of Chlorella sp. and Spirulina (Arthrospira) sp. (2023) · cites this paper as [210]
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- Authors
- Ferrando, L., & Matamoros, V.
- Affiliations
- Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (ES)
- Corresponding author
- Matamoros, Víctor
- ORCID
- Matamoros, Víctor
- Venue
- Science of The Total Environment
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2020-02
- Volume
- 703
- Pages
- 134740
- ISSN
- 0048-9697 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2984467432
- Cited by
- 98
- References
- 38
- Citations by year
- 2026: 9 · 2025: 12 · 2024: 13 · 2023: 21 · 2022: 20 · 2021: 16 · 2020: 7
- FWCI
- 3.22
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Licence
- Locations
- The Science of The Total Environment (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- DIGITAL.CSIC (Spanish National Research Council (CSIC)) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- Consejo Superior de Investigaciones CientÃficas
- Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades (CTM2017-91355-EXP)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Pollution › Pharmaceutical and Antibiotic Environmental Impacts
- Physical Sciences › Engineering › Biomedical Engineering › Environmental remediation with nanomaterials
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Water Science and Technology › Adsorption and biosorption for pollutant removal
- Keywords
- groundwater treatment, nitrate removal, antibiotics, pesticides, organic micropollutants, sulfonamides, atrazine, bromacil, diuron, bentazon, mecoprop, luffa sponge, polyurethane foam, hydraulic retention time, bioremediation
- MeSH terms
- Anti-Bacterial Agents, Nitrates, Pesticides, Water Pollutants, Chemical, Microalgae, Groundwater
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