Alice Ferreira

• Master of Biological Engineering
• National Laboratory of Energy and Geology

Anaerobic and membrane technologies are a promising combination to decrease the energy consumption associated with wastewater treatment, allowing the recovery of resources: organic matter as biomethane, nutrient assimilation by microalgae and reclaimed water. In this study, domestic wastewater was treated using a combination of an upflow anaerobic...

Microalgae are increasingly recognized as a valuable resource for bolstering sustainability in agriculture. However, current research and patents primarily focus on Chlorella spp., Scenedesmus spp., and Spirulina spp., thus leaving the vast diversity of microalgae relatively unexplored for agricultural applications. Euglena gracilis (Euglenophyta)...

Extremophile environments are an important source for finding microorganisms with a potential for biotechnological applications. Among these microorganisms, microalgae contribute to several sustainable processes such as wastewater treatments or nutrition. In this work it was characterized a microalga isolated from a solar panel. The morphological a...

Microalgae are microscopic organisms that have a broad range of applications, from wastewater treatment, CO2 mitigation to therapeutic proteins, and pharmaceuticals. Recently, the combination of wastewater treatment-based microalgae and the use of the obtained biomass as biofertilizers/stimulants/pesticides have been highly emphasized for their use...

The continuous growth of the world population has imposed major challenges on agriculture. Consequently, farmers generalized the overuse of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides to meet the global food demand. Although these products have helped many developing countries increase their crop yield, they have simultaneously resulted in many issues, ma...

Microalgae are capable of assimilating nutrients from wastewater (WW), producing clean water and biomass rich in bioactive compounds that need to be recovered from inside the microalgal cell. This work investigated subcritical water (SW) extraction to collect high-value compounds from the microalga Tetradesmus obliquus after treating poultry WW. Th...

3º REUNIÓN ANUAL 2022 de la RED CYTED 320RT0005 RENUWAL RED IBEROAMERICANA PARA EL TRATAMIENTO DE EFLUENTES CON MICROALGA Infografías sobre el tratamiento de efluentes con microalgas.

Algae have been consumed for millennia in several parts of the world as food, food supplements, and additives, due to their unique organoleptic properties and nutritional and health benefits. Algae are sustainable sources of proteins, minerals, and fiber, with well-balanced essential amino acids, pigments, and fatty acids, among other relevant meta...

High-pressure pre-treatment followed by supercritical carbon dioxide (ScCO2) extraction (300 bar, 40 °C) was applied for the attainment of the lipophilic fraction of microalga Tetradesmus obliquus. The chemical profile of supercritical extracts of T. obliquus was analyzed by ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography–high-resolution mass spectrom...

Energy crops are dedicated cultures directed for biofuels, electricity, and heat production. Due to their tolerance to contaminated lands, they can alleviate and remediate land pollution by the disposal of toxic elements and polymetallic agents. Moreover, these crops are suitable to be exploited in marginal soils (e.g., saline), and, therefore, the...

Microalgae have almost unlimited applications due to their versatility and robustness to grow in different environmental conditions, their biodiversity and variety of valuable bioactive compounds. Wastewater can be used as a low-cost and readily available medium for microalgae, while the latter removes the pollutants to produce clean water. Neverth...

The overapplication of manure on agricultural soils leads to nitrogen and phosphorus discharge into the aquatic environment, resulting in serious eutrophication problems and decreased water quality. Piggery wastewater (PWW) can be treated by microalgae to recycle nutrients, but the toxic levels of ammonia and organic matter hinder their growth. Fre...

Electrocoagulation is a promising technology to harvest and concentrate microalgae while saving costs on secondary dewatering steps. However, the sacrificial electrodes release salts that impact the media and the harvested biomass. This study evaluated the effects of Fe, Zn, and Mg electrodes on Nannochloropsis oceanica harvesting and elementary co...

In this study, green technology was applied for extraction of compounds from wastewater-grown microalga biomass with the final goal of obtaining microbiologically safe products within a sustainable biorefinery process with zero waste. Tetradesmus obliquus biomass resulting from brewery wastewater treatment, with (To-CO2) and without CO2 supplementa...

The main goal of this study was to develop an efficient, green approach for the valorization of Tetradesmus obliquus biomass, with zero waste. This microalga was selected because it is widespread, resistant, easy for cultivation, and fast-growing. In the first step, supercritical carbon dioxide (ScCO2) extraction followed by rapid gas decompression...

Electrocoagulation is a promising technology to harvest microalgal biomass. However, the commonly used aluminum electrodes release undesired salts that decrease biomass value. In this study, alternative iron, zinc, and magnesium electrodes and operational parameters pH, time and current density were studied to harvest Nannochloropsis oceanica. For...

Pig farming generates highly polluting wastewaters which entail serious environmental issues when not adequately managed. Microalgae systems can be promising for cost, energy and environment-efficient treatment of piggery wastewater (PWW). Aside from clean water, the produced biomass can be used as biostimulants and biopesticides contributing to a...

Microalgae have been consumed by humans for thousands of years. Research has shown that microalgae exhibit huge potential to meet the dietary needs of the growing population, generating great interest in these organisms. Thanks to their nutritional composition, mainly their high protein content, but also to the presence of bioactive compounds with...

Wastewater treatment was performed with different microalgae/cyanobacteria strains: Synechochystis sp., Scenedesmus obliquus, Chlorella protothecoides, Chlorella vulgaris, etc. The potential of the produced biomass (at 0.5g/L) was evaluated for several seeds (cucumber, barley, wheat, soya, watercress, and tomato) as a biostimulant for seed germina...

The potential of Scenedesmus obliquus biomass, after treating several wastewaters (WWs) (urban, dairy and brewery industries, cattle and poultry breeding), was evaluated for the production of bio-char, bio-oil and bio-gas, through a pyrolysis process. The experiments were carried out in a fixed bed reactor at a temperature of 748 K during 15 min. T...

Microalgae are microorganisms with the capacity to contribute to the sustainable and healthy food production, in addition to wastewater treatment. The subject of this work was to determine the potential of Scenedesmus obliquus microalga grown in brewery wastewater to act as a plant biostimulant. The germination index of watercress seeds, as well as...

Conventional wastewater treatment (WWT) is currently based on the action of heterotrophic and nitrifying bacteria supported by mechanical aeration in a sequence of interconnected aerobic, anoxic, and anaerobic processes. It provided satisfactory levels of pollutant removal, but at the expenses of high-energy consumption and environmental impacts (h...

Microalgae-based bioproducts remain expensive mainly due to microalgae cultivation, harvesting, and downstream processing costs. Nonetheless, microalgae are a high potential source of several biofuels, biofertilizers, and bioproducts (e.g., carbohydrates, long-chain fatty acids, pigments, and proteins), which can provide important nutritional, cosm...

Microalga Scenedesmus obliquus cultivated in brewery effluents. The microalga was tested as a biofertilizer/biostimulant and showed an enhancing effect on seed germination and plant growth (number, length and leaves).

The circular bioeconomy concept relies on the exploitation of wastes as a feedstock of different biotechnological processes to obtain, as much as possible, a huge spectrum of biochemical components through a biorefinery platform. This work deals with the treatment of brewery effluent through the cultivation of Scenedesmus obliquus microalga and the...

It has been shown that microalga S. obliquus presented bioactive compounds which had an enhancing effect on seed germination and plant growth (number, length and leaves). Moreover, there was an increase of 40% on germination of watercress (Lepidium sativum) using the biomass at 0.1 g/L, without any pre-treatment steps.

The ability of microalgae to grow in nutrient-rich environments and to accumulate nutrients from wastewaters (WW) makes them attractive for the sustainable and low-cost treatment of WW. The valuable biomass produced can be further used for the generation of bioenergy, animal feed, fertilizers, and biopolymers, among others. In this study, Scenedesm...

Microalgae can be used for wastewater bioremediation with simultaneous CO2 biofixation producing valuable biomass. Wastewater from a brewery was treated using the Scenedesmus obliquus microalga in bubble-column photobioreactors (PBRs). The PBRs were fed with ambient air and the effect of a 10% (v/v) brewery CO2 supplement was studied. The PBRs were...