This survey examines nitrogen and phosphorus removal ability of chlorella sp. microalgae in synthetic wastewater in a 50-liter flat plate photobioreactor. The chlorella sp., a specific local strain microalgae isolated from Parkand Abad wastewater treatment plant in Mashhad, was cultured in synthetic wastewater under the 16:8 light/dark cycle at temperature 27±1 ˚C. Synthetic wastewater contained 304 mg/l NaNO3 (50mg/l NO3-N) as a nitrogen source and 22 mg/l K2HPO4 (3.7 mg/l PO4-P) as a phosphorus source. As expected, no nitrate consumption was observed during lag phase. Nitrate and phosphorus were removed dramatically as microalgae started to grow rapidly during the exponential phase. Maximum nitrogen removal of 96% was obtained after 9 days of the experiment. Furthermore, phosphorus was almost completely removed. The biomass production of 0.6 g/l was achieved during the time course of the experiment.

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