Advances in Anaerobic Digestion of Agricultural and Industrial Organic Waste: 2nd Edition

A special issue of Fermentation (ISSN 2311-5637). This special issue belongs to the section "Industrial Fermentation".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 April 2024) | Viewed by 2595

Special Issue Editor

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Anaerobic digestion (AD) represents a suitable technology for the transformation of organic waste to valuable renewable energy. However, the feeding of complex organic matrices to conventional digesters could lead to low conversion performance. Therefore, adequate methodologies are necessary to overcome the digestion difficulty of some agricultural and industrial wastes. In this regard, scientific research in recent years has taken different directions. The main approaches for the enhancement of anaerobic digestion processes can be summarized as follows: optimization of the process parameters, co-digestion, feedstock pretreatment, additive supplementation, optimization of bioreactor configurations, and application of genetic technologies. The first strategy aims to identify the optimal values of parameters that mainly affect the AD process to increase biogas production (pH, temperature, COD/N/P ratio, organic loading rate, etc.). In co-digestion processes, two or more different wastes are fed into the digesters in proper amounts to obtain a balanced mixture in terms of chemical–physical characteristics. On the other hand, the use of pretreatments exploits physical and chemical processes to improve the characteristics of waste before feeding it into digesters. The supplementation of additives (activated carbon, zero-valent metals, zeolites, etc.) aims to enhance AD mechanisms including direct interspecies electron transfer (DIET). Bioreactor optimization focuses on changing digesters’ geometry from single-stage to double-stage and multi-stage to improve the digestion of complex organic waste. Genetic strategies exploit the manipulations of enzymes, methanogens, and microbial strains to enhance biological activity.

This Special Issue welcomes papers focused on the latest knowledge and innovations in processes aimed at biogas production from agricultural and industrial organic wastes. The papers must show originality and provide a significant contribution to the scope of the Special Issue.

Thank you for your contributions.

Dr. Alessio Siciliano
Guest Editor

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Keywords

  • anaerobic digestion
  • anaerobic bioreactors
  • biogas
  • biomethane
  • co-digestion
  • fermentation
  • methanization
  • organic waste
  • organic waste pretreatment

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Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

17 pages, 5778 KiB  
Article
Response of Anaerobic Granular Sludge Reactor to Plant Polyphenol Stress: Floc Disintegration and Microbial Inhibition
by Shilin Bi, Hua Lian, Huiya Zhang, Zexiang Liu, Yong Chen and Jian Zhang
Fermentation 2024, 10(5), 262; https://doi.org/10.3390/fermentation10050262 - 17 May 2024
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 943
Abstract
Plant polyphenols are potential inhibitors for the anaerobic treatment of wastewater from the wood processing, pharmaceutical, and leather industries. Tannic acid (TA) was selected as a model compound to assess the inhibitory effect of plant polyphenols in simulated wastewater in this study. The [...] Read more.
Plant polyphenols are potential inhibitors for the anaerobic treatment of wastewater from the wood processing, pharmaceutical, and leather industries. Tannic acid (TA) was selected as a model compound to assess the inhibitory effect of plant polyphenols in simulated wastewater in this study. The influences of TA on methanogenic activity, sludge morphology, and the microbial community were investigated under glucose and sodium acetate as carbon substrates, respectively. The results show that a threshold concentration of TA above 1500 mg·L−1 that triggers significant methanogenesis depression and volatile fatty acids (VFAs) accumulation. In addition, granules might be weakened by TA addition, reflected in changes in extracellular polymeric substances (EPS) within the granules and an increase in floc in the effluent. The anaerobic granular sludge (AnGS) fed with sodium acetate was more sensitive than the presence of glucose as the substrate when facing the challenge of TA. The concentration of the mcrA gene in granular sludge decreased markedly in response to TA stress, providing direct evidence that a high concentration of TA caused the inhibition of specific gene expressions. This study provides details about the adverse impacts of TA stress on methane production, the microbial community, and granule integrity, deepening our understanding of the anaerobic treatment of plant polyphenols contained in wastewater. Full article
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17 pages, 2084 KiB  
Article
Methane Production Reduced by Lignin Derivatives in Pulping Wastewater: Inhibition of Free Hydrolase
by Jinxu Lei, Zhihong Xu, Yong Chen, Guo Yu, Zexiang Liu, Shuangfei Wang, Jian Zhang, Kelin Li and Li Xie
Fermentation 2024, 10(5), 247; https://doi.org/10.3390/fermentation10050247 - 10 May 2024
Viewed by 886
Abstract
The lignin derivatives generated during pulping might be responsible for the suboptimal performance of anaerobic reactors during the treatment of pulping wastewater. However, the exact mechanisms by which these derivatives exert influence remain unclear. This study investigated the influence of lignin derivatives, simulated [...] Read more.
The lignin derivatives generated during pulping might be responsible for the suboptimal performance of anaerobic reactors during the treatment of pulping wastewater. However, the exact mechanisms by which these derivatives exert influence remain unclear. This study investigated the influence of lignin derivatives, simulated using humic acids (HAs), in anaerobic granular sludge (AnGS). Compared to the enzymes present during floc-bonding and granule-bonding, the HAs impeded the conversion of unhydrolyzed substrates into methane and caused considerable inactivation of free enzymes. Simultaneously, the HAs suppressed agglomeration and weakened the strength of the AnGS. Furthermore, calcium ions helped maintain the integrity of the sludge structure. Therefore, the inhibition of extracellular enzymes using lignin derivatives delays the methanation of unhydrolyzed substrates, resulting in a reduced biomass within AnGS reactors owing to sludge disintegration and biomass loss. This study serves as a reference for investigating the persistent risks originating from lignin derivatives associated with using anaerobic granular-sludge bed reactors to treat pulping wastewater. Full article
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