Defining wastewaters used for cultivation of algae E. Monfet, A. Unc ⁎ School of Science and Environment, Memorial University of Newfoundland, Corner Brook, NL A2H 5G4, Canada abstract article info Article history: Received 25 September 2016 Received in revised form 12 November 2016 Accepted 6 December 2016 Available online xxxx Employing algae to remove wastewater nutrients, as a treatment option, and employing wastewaters for algal cultivation for the production of biomass and bio-products are a growing field of research. Nevertheless, waste- waters are of a wide range of sources and consequently have a wide range of properties. Synthetic wastewaters of various nutrient profiles are often employed, likely as a means to normalize experimental results. Considering that the capability of an algal species to utilize nutrients in a certain chemical form and at certain concentrations and ratios may vary, an adequate understanding of both wastewater parameters and algal requirements, both ki- netic properties, would benefit algal cultivation. A review of the available literature shows that reporting of ex- perimental results does not follow a standardized protocol and thus much of the information available in the peer-reviewed literature cannot be always easily explained, compared and replicated. Moreover, while the often employed motivation for such research is the integration of wastewater treatment and production of algal biomass, the results commonly support the utility of algae for removal of wastewater nutrients paradigm and less so the conjoint paradigm of wastewaters as a reliable source of nutrients for algal production. This, argu- ably, leads to inconsistencies in reporting of experimental results which limits a concerted approach and thus a more rapid advancement of the technology. It would be recommendable that reporting of experimental condi- tions include a clear characterization of nitrogen and phosphorus concentrations and ideally also offer an account of the speciation of these nutrients in wastewater substrates. © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Contents 1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0 2. Methodology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0 3. Results and discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0 3.1. Managing nutrients and algal species . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0 3.2. Availability of nutrients . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0 3.3. Other considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0 4. Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0 Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0 Appendix A. Supplementary data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0 1. Introduction Wastewaters are the by-product of a wide range of domestic, indus- trial, commercial or agricultural activities and consequently are of high- ly variable chemical and biological properties. The content of nitrogen and phosphorus in wastewaters is most concerning from an environmental point of view and extensive research has been directed towards their removal from wastewater [1]. One option is recovery of nutrients by algae or microalgae with the added benefit of producing bio-products and biofuels [2–5]. Consequently, a significant body of sci- entific literature is dedicated to the capacity of algae to remove nitrogen or phosphorus from wastewaters or to the capacity of wastewaters to sustain algal growth [6]. A query in the SCOPUS database for [“wastewa- ter treatment” AND “algae” AND “biofuels” OR “fuels”] reveals a rapid increase in publications from 5 in 2007 to 87 in 2015, while the Algal Research xxx (2016) xxx–xxx ⁎ Corresponding author. E-mail address: aunc@grenfell.mun.ca (A. Unc). ALGAL-00758; No of Pages 7 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.algal.2016.12.008 2211-9264/© 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Algal Research journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/algal Please cite this article as: E. Monfet, A. Unc, Defining wastewaters used for cultivation of algae, Algal Res. (2016), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/ j.algal.2016.12.008