Wastewater is often viewed as a challenge to manage, but it can also be a source of nutrients, water, carbon, and other valuable resources. Algae-based technologies are helping to unlock this potential, offering sustainable solutions that combine wastewater treatment with biomass production, resource recovery, and circular economy approaches.
To bring together advances in this rapidly evolving field, the Journal of Applied Phycology launched the Topical Collection"Algal Biotechnology in Wastewater Treatment: Challenges, Advances, and Opportunities." Since its launch in September 2025, the collection has already published 18 articles, highlighting innovative research from around the world.
The articles published so far illustrate the breadth of opportunities at the intersection of algal biotechnology and wastewater management. For example:
- "Exploiting brewery wastewater for the sustainable cultivation of Chlorella fusca" explored how brewery effluents can support microalgal cultivation while reducing production costs and generating valuable biomass.
- "Valorization of swine manure-derived effluent using Arthrospira (Limnospira) maxima" demonstrated nutrient removal at pilot scale while producing biomass suitable for use as livestock feed, showcasing a practical circular-economy application.
- "Mechanistic insights into groundwater nitrate removal by a microalgal biofilm photobioreactor" provided new understanding of how algal systems can improve nitrate remediation, contributing to the optimization of treatment technologies.
These contributions address topics ranging from nutrient recovery, wastewater remediation, and photobioreactor design to biomass valorization, microbial interactions, and techno-economic assessment. Together, they demonstrate how algal systems can support more sustainable and resource-efficient water management.
The collection remains open for submissions, and we welcome new research, reviews, and perspectives that advance the science and application of algae-based wastewater treatment technologies. We are particularly interested in studies that help overcome barriers to scale-up, improve process efficiency, and strengthen the integration of algal systems into real-world wastewater treatment and resource recovery frameworks.
If your research contributes to this field, we invite you to submit your work and join a growing body of literature shaping the future of sustainable wastewater management.
👉 Explore the collection and submit your manuscript: Algal Biotechnology in Wastewater Treatment: Challenges, Advances, and Opportunities
