Assessment of Long-Term Fermentability of PHA-Based Materials from Pure and Mixed Microbial Cultures for Potential Environmental Applications

Amanat, Neda; Matturro, Bruna; Rossi, Marta Maria; Valentino, Francesco; Villano, Marianna; Petrangeli Papini, Marco

doi:10.3390/w13070897

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Assessment of Long-Term Fermentability of PHA-Based Materials from Pure and Mixed Microbial Cultures for Potential Environmental Applications

and

Marco Petrangeli Papini

^1,*

Department of Chemistry, Sapienza University of Rome, P.le Aldo Moro 5, 00185 Rome, Italy

Water Research Institute (IRSA-CNR), Via Salaria km 29.300, 00015 Monterotondo RM, Italy

Department of Environmental Sciences, Informatics and Statistics, Ca Foscari University of Venice, Via Torino 155, 30172 Mestre-Venice, Italy

Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.

Academic Editor: Constantinos V. Chrysikopoulos

Water 2021, 13(7), 897; https://doi.org/10.3390/w13070897

Received: 28 January 2021 / Revised: 15 March 2021 / Accepted: 18 March 2021 / Published: 25 March 2021

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Groundwater and Soil Remediation)

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Abstract

The use of polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHA) as slow-release electron donors for environmental remediation represents a novel and appealing application that is attracting considerable attention in the scientific community. In this context, here, the fermentation pattern of different types of PHA-based materials has been investigated in batch and continuous-flow experiments. Along with commercially available materials, produced from axenic microbial cultures, PHA produced at pilot scale by mixed microbial cultures (MMC) using waste feedstock have been also tested. As a main finding, a rapid onset of volatile fatty acids (VFA) production was observed with a low-purity MMC-deriving material, consisting of microbial cells containing 56% (on weight basis) of intracellular PHA. Indeed, with this material a sustained, long-term production of organic acids (i.e., acetic, propionic, and butyric acids) was observed. In addition, the obtained yield of conversion into acids (up to 70% gVFA/gPHA) was higher than that obtained with the other tested materials, made of extracted and purified PHA. These results clearly suggest the possibility to directly use the PHA-rich cells deriving from the MMC production process, with no need of extraction and purification procedures, as a sustainable and effective carbon source bringing remarkable advantages from an economic and environmental point of view. View Full-Text

Keywords: polyhydroxyalkanoates; mixed microbial cultures; acidogenic fermentation; electron-donors; bioremediation

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Amanat, N.; Matturro, B.; Rossi, M.M.; Valentino, F.; Villano, M.; Petrangeli Papini, M. Assessment of Long-Term Fermentability of PHA-Based Materials from Pure and Mixed Microbial Cultures for Potential Environmental Applications. Water 2021, 13, 897. https://doi.org/10.3390/w13070897

AMA Style

Amanat N, Matturro B, Rossi MM, Valentino F, Villano M, Petrangeli Papini M. Assessment of Long-Term Fermentability of PHA-Based Materials from Pure and Mixed Microbial Cultures for Potential Environmental Applications. Water. 2021; 13(7):897. https://doi.org/10.3390/w13070897

Chicago/Turabian Style

Amanat, Neda, Bruna Matturro, Marta M. Rossi, Francesco Valentino, Marianna Villano, and Marco Petrangeli Papini. 2021. "Assessment of Long-Term Fermentability of PHA-Based Materials from Pure and Mixed Microbial Cultures for Potential Environmental Applications" Water 13, no. 7: 897. https://doi.org/10.3390/w13070897

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Assessment of Long-Term Fermentability of PHA-Based Materials from Pure and Mixed Microbial Cultures for Potential Environmental Applications

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