LAUSR

Treatment of slaughterhouse wastewater is a huge industrial problem. The use of an algae biorefinery platform could be a sustainable technological alternative that produces value-added compounds instead of dumping the wastewater. For this reason, this research aimed to evaluate squalene production from the microalgae Phormidium autumnale cultivated using agroindustrial wastewater. A derivatization method was performed to determine the squalene and fatty acids content, evaluated by gas chromatography with flame ionization and mass spectrometry detectors. A total of 0.18 g/kg of squalene were found in the biomass, with a high content of unsaturated fatty acids (52%). Sensitivity analysis estimated production of 727–72,750 kg/year in industries with different capacities. In this sense, P. autumnale in agroindustrial wastewater could offer a potential alternative method of squalene production.Graphical Abstract