Growth, Turnover, and Recycling of Cyanobacteria from Soda Lakes

Date
2025-01-22
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Abstract

Cyanobacteria have been proposed as a promising resource for the next generation of industrial biotechnologies to produce high-value food ingredients and bioactive compounds. As photosynthetic microorganisms, they require only sunlight, carbon dioxide, water, and essential nutrients to thrive. Cyanobacteria are remarkable for growing in non-arable land, avoiding competition with conventional crops. They can also be cultivated in seawater and wastewater, conserving precious freshwater resources and making them ideal for industrial applications in water-scarce regions. Their versatility and potential for large-scale, sustainable bioproduction make cyanobacteria key players in developing eco-friendly biotechnologies to address global challenges in food and chemicals. However, the scale-up of these biotechnologies faces significant challenges. One major challenge is cultivation, which includes carbon supply, high water requirements, and nutrient availability. This thesis explores strategies to address these challenges by investigating the reuse and recycling of waste products in a closed-loop cultivation system. The study focuses on cultivating a cyanobacterial consortium under high pH and alkalinity conditions, beginning with examining nutrient management and the reuse of spent medium (Chapter 2). The results show that the spent medium contains many essential nutrients for cultivation, but requires replenishment with nitrogen and bicarbonate before it can be reused effectively. Additionally, the spent medium can be reused for several cycles without negatively impacting biomass growth, provided such replenishment is implemented. This approach of reusing spent media reduces water and nutrient demands over multiple cycles, offering a sustainable cultivation method. Chapter 3 delves into the microbial ecology and biogeochemistry of sediments in Canadian soda lakes, the natural habitat of the cyanobacterial consortium. This chapter highlights unique microbial adaptations to extreme environments and provides insights into nutrient cycling and ecological resilience. Chapter 4 analyzes waste products from anaerobic digestion, revealing their potential as nutrient sources while also uncovering contaminants such as 2,4-di-tert-butylphenol, which may contribute to culture crashes. These findings underscore the need for pretreatment strategies to recycle anaerobic digestion waste in the closed-loop system.

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Keywords
microalgal culitvation, nutrient recycling, bioengineering, renewable energy
Citation
Paquette, A. (2025). Growth, turnover, and recycling of cyanobacteria from soda lakes (Doctoral thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca.