Potential of Human Urine as a Nutrient Medium for the Biomass Production of Microalga Scenedesmus sp

Abstract

Microalgae have value-added chemicals, but their biomass production is costly due to the expensive nutrient chemicals. Meantime human urine (HU) is considered wastewater and has basic nutrients for autotrophs. This study tested the potentials of being cheaply available in HU as a nutrient source for the biomass production of microalga Scenedesmus sp. HU was collected, sterilized, and made different dilutions. Microalga of Scenedesmus sp., was isolated from the urine contaminated site, purified, inoculated into the HU medium, and incubated under Sunlight for 7 days at 25 °C. The maximum growth was observed in 15 % HU as 0.795 OD670nm with 0.57 g/L biomass production with a significant difference (p<0.01). The productivity of 81 mg/L/day was reached. The concentrated urine of more than 20 % was not supporting the growth of microalga. This study concluded that human urine can be used as a nutrient medium for microalgae growth at certain dilution.