[ Objective] This study was to improve the biomass of Navicula tenera, and thus to provide reference for achieving the industrial production of Navicula tenera. [Method] The feasibility of using sewage to cultivate Navicula tenera was preliminarily investigated based on the consideration of regional characteristics; and a series of culture conditions including the nutrient source of nitrogen（N）, phosphorus（P）, iron（Fe）, silicon（ Si ） and the salinity in medium for culturing Navicula tenera, were optimized by single factor test and orthogonal design.[Result] The optimized conditions for cultivating Navicula tenera using sewage are as follows： the water from Xiaoerlou Artificial Lake of Nanjing University of Technology as basic solvent; 360 mg/L urea; 150 mg/L N2HPO4 · 12H2O; 50 mg/L ferric citrate; 2 000 mg/L Na2SiO3 · 9H2O; 2.0 mol/L salinity. Navicula tenera was strongly adaptive to sewage and could well uptake the nutrient sources in the sewage. Under the optimized conditions, the culture cost decreased, and meanwhile the biomass of Navicula tenera reached 4. 766 g/L which is 3.57 multiples over original medium and 1.9 multiples over optimized medium No. 1.[ Conclusion] This study laid a foundation for the combination of culturing Navicula tenera in large scale and sewage treatment.
