In the present study, the abattoir digestate was used as a culture medium for Spongiochloris sp. growth with added mineral components under optimized conditions in batch culture. Firstly, an Hadamard matrix was used to investigate the impact of certain influencing factors on the Spongiochloris sp. growth. Then, a fractional factorial design 2(7-4) was successfully employed to optimize the concentration of different added components to abattoir digestate for increased Spongiochloris sp. biomass production. The major influencing factors were NaHCO3 and FeSO4 at a level of 2000 mg/L and 5 mg/L, respectively. A high biomass production of 5.29 x 10(6) cell/mL and an important content of chlorophyll a of 65.32 mg/L were obtained after 42 days of culture of Spongiochloris sp. on the defined abattoir medium at static conditions. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.