Removal of Nutrients and Selected Heavy Metals in Wet Market Wastewater by Using Microalgae <i>Scenedesmus </i>Sp.

The wet market wastewater may lead to pollution, odour and aesthetic problems to the environment and society if not treating properly. Thus, this research was conducted to culture microalgae Scenedesmus sp. and to identify the optimal concentration of microalgae Scenedesmus sp.due to the nutrient and heavy metal removals from wet market wastewater based on laboratory scale. The samples were taken from Public Market Parit Raja, Batu Pahat at 9a.m. in the morning using grab sampling technique. The characteristics of raw wastewater and microalgae Scenedesmus sp. were determined. There are five sample wastewater (used 625ml for each five sample wastewater) with five different sample concentrations of microalgae which are 6.50x105, 49.88x104, 34.75x104, 19.63x104 and 49.88x104 cell/ml with 16 days as duration for period study. The microalgae were cultured by BBM for eight days and another eight days for treatment with replicates three times for each sample. The analysis were measured due to the nutrient and heavy metal removals which are TN, TP, TOC, Fe and Zn during eight days treatment process. Based on experimental result, the optimum efficiency removals for each concentration were achieved 45.6-86.4% of nutrients and heavy metals removal. The highest amount of nutrient and heavy metal removals after wastewater treatment by microalgae are TN 74.77%, TP 82.17%, TOC 86.36%, Fe 65.76% and Zn 84.14%. As conclusion for this experiment, Sample 2 (concentration 49.88x104 cell/ml of microalgae Scenedesmus sp.) is the optimum concentration due to the highest percentage of nutrients and heavy metals removal which achieved 65.3-82.1% which TN 65.32%, TP 76.77%, TOC 80.34%, Fe 65.76% and Zn 82.12%.