Recently, mass production of lipid along with heavy metal reduction is gaining momentum due to their cost-effective and greener approach towards waste water treatment. The purpose of this study is to investigate the small scale photo bioreactor treatment of tannery effluent using Chlorella sp. isolated form Yercaud lake, Tamil Nadu, India. The results showed a significant decrease in the heavy metals content in the tannery effluent after the treatment. Maximum reduction of the heavy metal Chromium (Cr) of 10.92 mg L−1 was recorded, followed by Cobalt (Co)-7.37 mg L−1, Nickel (Ni)-9.15 mg L−1, Cadmium (Cd)-8.48 mg L−1, Lead (Pb)-12.54 mg L−1, Zinc (Zn)-11.56 mg L−1 and Copper (Cu)-10.71 mg L−1 at the end of the 20th day of treatment. The microalgae, Chlorella sp. was analyzed for their biosorption ability and the maximum biosorption capacity (qmax) rate against heavy metals was 81.36, 70.53, 82.15, 63.29, 58.92, 83.43, 64.83 µg L−1 for Cr, Pb, Ni, Cd, Co, Zn, and Cu respectively. It matched with the Langmuir and Freundlich kinetics models. The maximum CO<inf>2</inf> utilization was found to be 60.50% and maximum concentration of lipid, carbohydrate and protein was found to be 0.95 g L−1, 250 µg mL−1 and 160 µg mL−1, respectively. The presence of various groups such as hydroxyl, alkyl, carbonyl and carboxylic acids was confirmed using Fourier transform infrared analysis. Thus, the isolated microalgae showed good biosorption ability towards the various heavy metal pollutants from tannery waste water. © 2022 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.