Algal bioproducts derived from suspended solids in intensive land-based aquaculture.

Sarah A Castine, Nicholas A Paul, Marie Magnusson, Michael I Bird, Rocky de Nys

AIMS@JCU, Australian Institute of Marine Science and School of Marine and Tropical Biology & Centre for Sustainable Tropical Fisheries and Aquaculture, James Cook University, Townsville, Queensland, Australia. s.castine@cgiar.org

Bioresource technology 2013 Mar

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Land-based aquaculture produces suspended solids in culture pond and settlement pond waters that could be harvested as a bioresource. Suspended solids were quantified, characterised and harvested from these two sources to assess their suitability for conversion to bioproducts. The suspended solids of settlement ponds were less concentrated (87.6±24.7mgL(-1)) than those of culture ponds (131.8±8.8mgL(-1)), but had a higher concentration of microalgae (27.5±4.0%) and consequently higher particulate organic carbon (24.8±4.7%) and particulate nitrogen (4.0±0.8%). The microalgal community also differed between sources with a higher concentration of fatty acids in the biomass from settlement ponds. Consequently, biochar produced from biomass harvested from settlement ponds was higher in organic carbon and nitrogen, with a lower cation exchange capacity. In conclusion, we characterised a renewable and potentially valuable bioresource for algal bioproducts derived from suspended solids in intensive land-based aquaculture. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Citation

Sarah A Castine, Nicholas A Paul, Marie Magnusson, Michael I Bird, Rocky de Nys. Algal bioproducts derived from suspended solids in intensive land-based aquaculture. Bioresource technology. 2013 Mar;131:113-20