Performance and microbial analysis during long‐term anaerobic digestion of olive mill wastewater in a packed‐bed biofilm reactor

Olive oil and pig productions are important industries in Portugal that generate large volumes of wastewater with high organic load and toxicity, raising environmental concerns. The principal objective of this study is to energetically valorize these organic effluents—piggery effluent and olive mill wastewater—through the anaerobic digestion to the biogas/methane production, by means of the effluent complementarity concept. Several mixtures of piggery effluent were tested, with an increasing percentage of olive mill wastewater. The best performance was obtained for samples of piggery effluent alone and in admixture with 30% of OMW, which provided the same volume of biogas (0.8 L, 70% CH4), 63/75% COD removal, and 434/489 L CH4/kg SVin, respectively. The validation of the process was assessed by molecular evaluation through Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) of the 16S rRNA gene. The structure of the microbial communities for both samples, throughout the anaerobic process, was characterized by the predominance of bacterial populations belonging to the phylum Firmicutes, mainly Clostridiales, with Bacteroidetes being the subdominant populations. Archaea populations belonging to the genus Methanosarcina became predominant throughout anaerobic digestion, confirming the formation of methane mainly from acetate, in line with the greatest removal of volatile fatty acids (VFAs) in these samples.

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Performance and dynamic modeling of a continuously operated pomace olive packed bed for olive mill wastewater treatment and phenol recovery

Chemosphere ◽

10.1016/j.chemosphere.2021.130797 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 130797

Author(s):

Amina Lissaneddine ◽

Laila Mandi ◽

Mounir El Achaby ◽

Emmanuel Mousset ◽

Eldon R. Rene ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Wastewater Treatment ◽

Dynamic Modeling ◽

Packed Bed ◽

Olive Mill Wastewater ◽

Olive Mill

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Kinetic study of anaerobic digestion of olive mill wastewater previously fermented with Aspergillus terreus

Process Biochemistry ◽

10.1016/0032-9592(93)80027-e ◽

1993 ◽

Vol 28 (6) ◽

pp. 397-404 ◽

Cited By ~ 23

Author(s):

R. Borja ◽

S.E. Garrido ◽

L. Martínez ◽

A. Ramos-Cormenzana ◽

A. Martín

Keyword(s):

Anaerobic Digestion ◽

Kinetic Study ◽

Aspergillus Terreus ◽

Olive Mill Wastewater ◽

Olive Mill

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Olive Mill Wastewater (OMW) Polyphenols Adsorption onto Polymeric Resins: Part I—Batch Anaerobic Digestion of OMW

Waste and Biomass Valorization ◽

10.1007/s12649-020-01168-1 ◽

2020 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Aikaterini Ioannis Vavouraki ◽

Margarita Andreas Dareioti ◽

Michael Kornaros

Keyword(s):

Anaerobic Digestion ◽

Olive Mill Wastewater ◽

Polymeric Resins ◽

Olive Mill

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Long-Term Evaluation of Mesophilic Semi-Continuous Anaerobic Digestion of Olive Mill Solid Waste Pretreated with Steam-Explosion

Energies ◽

10.3390/en12112222 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 12 (11) ◽

pp. 2222 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Antonio Serrano ◽

Fernando G. Fermoso ◽

Bernabé Alonso-Fariñas ◽

Guillermo Rodríguez-Gutiérrez ◽

Sergio López ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Anaerobic Digestion ◽

Phenolic Compounds ◽

Solid Waste ◽

Steam Explosion ◽

Loading Rates ◽

Microbial Inhibitors ◽

Olive Mill Solid Waste ◽

Term Evaluation ◽

Olive Mill

Steam-explosion is a promising technology for recovering phenolic compounds from olive mill solid waste (OMSW) due to its high impact on the structure of the fibre. Moreover, the recovery of the phenols, which are well-known microbial inhibitors, could improve the subsequent biomethanization of the dephenolized OMSW to produce energy. However, there is a considerable lack of knowledge about how the remaining phenolic compounds could affect a long-term biomethanization process of steam-exploded OMSW. This work evaluated a semi-continuous mesophilic anaerobic digestion of dephenolized steam-exploited OMSW during a long operational period (275 days), assessing different organic loading rates (OLRs). The process was stable at an OLR of 1 gVS/(L·d), with a specific production rate of 163 ± 28 mL CH4/(gVS·d). However, the increment of the OLR up to 2 gVS/(L·d) resulted in total exhaust of the methane production. The increment in the propionic acid concentration up to 1486 mg/L could be the main responsible factor for the inhibition. Regardless of the OLR, the concentration of phenolic compounds was always lower than the inhibition limits. Therefore, steam-exploited OMSW could be a suitable substrate for anaerobic digestion at a suitable OLR.

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