Belina Ribeiro

• MSc. in Chemistry
• Technician at National Laboratory of Energy and Geology

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...

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...

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...

Dairy industries have a high environmental impact, with very high energy and water consumption and polluting effluents. To increase the sustainability of these industries it is urgent to implement technologies for wastewater treatment allowing water recycling and energy savings. In this study, dairy wastewater was processed by ultrafiltration and n...

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.

Olive oil extraction is one of the ancient agricultural industries all over the Mediterranean area and even today it is of fundamental economic importance for many industries found over the whole Mediterranean. However, this industry generates large amounts of olive mill wastewater (OMW) and due to its physicochemical characteristics it causes seve...

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...

Olive mill wastewater (OMW) is a major waste stream resulting from numerous operations that occur during the production stages of olive oil. The resulting effluent contains various organic and inorganic contaminants and its environmental impact can be notable. The present work aims at investigating the efficiency of (i) jet-loop reactor with ultraf...

This work is part of a LIFE project to treat urban wastewater from Águas da Figueira (AdF, Figueira da Foz, PT) using a vertical tubular photobioreactor (PBR) prototype (150 L), to be scaled up and integrated in a waste water treatment plant (WWTP). The PBR was inoculated with three different microalgae: Chlorella vulgaris (Cv), Scenedesmus obliquu...

Performance of Jet-Loop reactors with ultrafiltration membrane system (JACTO.MBR) for olive mill wastewaters biotreatment B. Ribeiro1, I. Torrado1, L. Baeta-Hall1, A. Amer2, M. Rusan2, A. Eusébio1 1 Bioenergy Unit, LNEG, Estrada do Paço do Lumiar, 22, 1649-038 Lisboa, PORTUGAL 2 Department of Natural Resources and Environment, JUST, PO Box 3030,...

The aim of the present work was the simultaneous treatment of urban wastewater using microalgae and the energetic valorization of the obtained biomass. Chlorella vulgaris (Cv), Scenedesmus obliquus (Sc) and a naturally occurring algal Consortium C (ConsC) were grown in an urban wastewater. The nutrient removals were quite high and the treated water...

Remediation of olive mill wastewater (OMW) is an important issue associated with olive-oil manufacturing, a widespread activity in the Mediterranean area. This high organic loading effluent contains water, organic acids, high-molecular-weight polyphenols such as tannins, antocyanins and catechins, which are considered to be responsible for its brow...

Lignocellulosic biomass can be utilized to produce ethanol, a promising alternative energy source for the limited crude oil. Wheat straw is an abundant agricultural residue which can be used as lignocellulosic raw material for bioconversion. There are mainly two processes involved in the bioconversion: hydrolysis of cellulose in the lignocellulosic...

Lignocelluloses from agricultural, industrial and forest residues account for the majority of the total biomass present in the world and represent the most prospective feedstock for ethanol production and other value-added products. Biofuels from plant biomass wastes represent one of the most promising alternative sources of energy. The economic pr...

During the last years there has been an increasing interest in using ethanol as a substitute for fossil fuels. The bioethanol used today is mainly produced from sugar cane and cereals, but reducing the production costs of ethanol is still crucial for a viable economic process. Cellulose from vegetable biomass will be the next cheap raw material for...

: Olive oil production is a traditional agricultural industry in Mediterranean countries and Portugal is one of the ten major producers. This industry generates an effluent, olive mill wastewater. This effluent does not undergo any treatment and is usually stored in evaporation lagoons or spread on the land. This can have a negative impact in the e...

Sulfur-oxidising acidophilic bacteria were obtained from weathered sulfur piles produced by a petroleum refinery. When grown on commercial sulfur the yield was 10(10)cell/g S. Sulfur conversion to sulfate was about 95% after 17 days. Cultures were also grown together with ash obtained from incinerated refinery sludge, which contained high amounts o...