The Concept of Microalgal Bio-refinery: From Sustainable Wastewater Treatment to Resources Recovery

Today in the frame of a bio-economy scenario, photosynthetic microorganisms (microalgae and cyanobacteria) represent an exploitable source to obtain a wide range of bio-based products of commercial interest in the field of energy, feed, food, nutraceutical, pharmaceutical, aquaculture, and agro-industry. Furthermore, they play a key role in eco-friendly environmental processes through the recovery of organic carbon and nutrients and absorption of heavy metals found in aquaculture, agricultural, industrial wastewater, and in general in effluents generated by human and animal activities. The use of microalgae for wastewater treatment facilitates, environmental protection, water reclamation, and re-use and recycling of by-products. The combination of wastewater management, recovery of valuable resources, and bioproduction of biomethane, bioethanol, bio-oil, biofertilizers, biopolymers, and pigments during wastewater remediation could be the basis for a circular bio-economy in developed and developing countries.

This paradigma is of vital importance today due to worldwide concerns about climate change, environmental pollution, and food and water shortage. Therefore, microalgae can serve as cell biofactories producing biomass as a source of valuable bio-products while being used as a tool in phycoremediation applications.

This Research Topic welcomes manuscripts that provide insights and advances on the current state of the microalgae biorefinery systems with particular emphasis on algal wastewater treatment technologies and re-use and valorisation of the treated water and produced biomass.

Submissions in the Original Research Articles, Review Articles, Perspectives, and Opinions Articles, and/or Short Communications format are welcome. Some of the acceptable topics are as follows:

-Heterotrophic and mixotrophic microalgal cultivation for wastewater degradation

-Emerging algae and microalgae-(cyano) bacteria-based technologies

-Mechanisms of algae-bacteria interaction in wastewater-based cultivation

-Recovery of value-added products from algal and microalgal-(cyano)bacterial biomasses

-Resource recovery via algal wastewater remediation

-Pre-treatment technology of high concentration and high turbidity wastewater suitable for subsequent microalgae-based degradation

-Microalgae-based waste biorefinery circular bio-economy models

-Applications of by-products from microalgal waste streams in phyco-remediation of wastewater and carbon sequestration

-Circular economy-driven algae and microalgae-(cyano) bacteria-based technologies towards carbon neutrality of wastewater treatment

Keywords: Microalgae, wastewater treatment, resource recovery, circular bio-economy models, carbon neutrality

Important Note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.