Abstract
One of the most important and advanced treatment methods applied to decrease the damages of treated waters to receiving bodies to minimum level is the one applied by using microalgae. With the use of microalgae, the waste waters are treated at further levels and biomass is obtained to use for beneficial purposes. In this study, the nitrogen and phosphorus removal was investigated with the formation of micro-algae that was 3 days mature in terms of sludge retention time in 24-hour hydraulic retention time at 5.5 L Microalgae Submerged Membrane Photo Bioreactor (msMpBR) fed by synthetic wastewater. The solid-liquid separation from the system was made with 0.45 μm hollow fiber membrane. The concentration was started with 156 mg/L suspended solid (SS) in the reactor, and when the stable conditions were achieved, 354 (±18) mg/L was added, and the Chlorophyll-a concentration was increased from 2.44 mg/L to 11.54 (±0.30) mg/L. Maximum removal yields in this study were as follows; COD; >24%; Total nitrogen (TN); 30.30%; NH4-N; 50.08%; PO4-P; 4.54%. This study has shown that there are low TN and PO4-P removal with this system in present conditions. In order to increase nitrogen and phosphorus removal, the conditions of the operations are being changed and optimization works are continuing.