The hydrolysis and biogas production of complex cellulosic substrates using three anaerobic biomass sources

2013 ◽  
Vol 67 (2) ◽  
pp. 293-298 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. Keating ◽  
D. Cysneiros ◽  
T. Mahony ◽  
V. O'Flaherty

In this study, the ability of various sludges to digest a diverse range of cellulose and cellulose-derived substrates was assessed at different temperatures to elucidate the factors affecting hydrolysis. For this purpose, the biogas production was monitored and the specific biogas activity (SBA) of the sludges was employed to compare the performance of three anaerobic sludges on the degradation of a variety of complex cellulose sources, across a range of temperatures. The sludge with the highest performance on complex substrates was derived from a full-scale bioreactor treating sewage at 37 °C. Hydrolysis was the rate-limiting step during the degradation of complex substrates. No activity was recorded for the synthetic cellulose compound carboxymethylcellulose (CMC) using any of the sludges tested. Increased temperature led to an increase in hydrolysis rates and thus SBA values. The non-granular nature of the mesophilic sludge played a positive role in the hydrolysis of solid substrates, while the granular sludges proved more effective on the degradation of soluble compounds.

2001 ◽  
Vol 44 (8) ◽  
pp. 115-122 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. Zeeman ◽  
W. Sanders

Although they differ greatly in origin complex waste(water)s mainly consist of proteins, lipids, carbohydrates and sometimes lignin in addition. Hydrolysis is the first and generally rate-limiting step in the process of anaerobic digestion of particulate organic substrates. Hydrolysis of particulate polymers can be described by Surface Based Kinetics, but for use in practice the empirical first order relation is advised. Unlike the hydrolysis of protein and carbohydrate, lipid hydrolysis is hardly occurring in the absence of methanogenesis. The latter is probably a physical rather than a biological process and affects the choice for either a one- or a two-step (phase) anaerobic reactor. In the chain of collection and transport, complex wastes often become complex wastewaters simply because of dilution. Dilution not only changes the reactor technology to be applied but also complicates the post-treatment and possibilities for resource recovery. Combining concentrated with diluted waste streams will almost always end up in much more complicated treatment technologies.


2002 ◽  
Vol 45 (12) ◽  
pp. 339-346 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. Eremektar ◽  
O. Karahan-Gul ◽  
F. Germirli-Babuna ◽  
S. Ovez ◽  
H. Uner ◽  
...  

Corn wet mill effluents are studied in terms of their characteristics relevant for biological treatment. They have a high COD of mainly soluble and biodegradable nature, with practically no soluble inert components. They generate a relatively high level of soluble residual metabolic products, which affects the choice of the appropriate biological treatment and favors aerobic activated sludge process. Experimental assessment of process kinetics yields typical values. Hydrolysis of the slowly biodegradable COD, the rate limiting step for the utilization of substrate, is characterized by an overall rate coefficient, which is within the range commonly associated for the hydrolysis of starch.


1981 ◽  
Vol 27 (12) ◽  
pp. 1260-1266 ◽  
Author(s):  
B. H. Kim ◽  
J. W. T. Wimpenny

Growth factor requirements, growth kinetics, and the ability to produce the enzyme cellulase were examined in the cellulolytic bacterium Cellulomonas flavigena KIST 321. The organism was found to require only thiamine for growth in mineral salts medium containing simple sugars or cellulose. Growth rates on various carbohydrates suggested that disruption of the crystalline structure was the rate-limiting step in the utilization of crystalline cellulose, and hydrolysis of the polymer itself was as rapid as the uptake of the hydrolytic product. When the organism was grown on cellulose the cellulolytic activity appeared to be bound to the cell at the beginning of the exponential growth phase: only after this did cell-free enzyme activity appear. The cell-free enzyme appeared to be unstable, and its activity decreased at the beginning of the stationary phase.


1999 ◽  
Vol 12 (12) ◽  
pp. 1082-1089 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samuel Duodu ◽  
T. V. Bhuvaneswari ◽  
Thomas J. W. Stokkermans ◽  
N. Kent Peters

Although Bradyrhizobium elkanii is a mutualistic symbiont of legumes, it synthesizes a phytotoxin, rhizobitoxine, that causes chlorosis on a variety of legume hosts, giving a pathogenic character to these interactions. No positive role for rhizobitoxine has been previously demonstrated. Interestingly, rhizobitoxine inhibits the rate-limiting step for ethylene biosynthesis, a plant hormone known to inhibit or down-regulate nodule development. We hypothesized that rhizobitoxine plays a positive role in nodule development through its inhibition of ethylene biosynthesis. To test this hypothesis, host plants of B. elkanii were screened for a differential nodulation response to the wild-type and rhizobitoxine mutant strains. In Vigna radiata (mungbean), the rhizobitoxine mutant strains induced many aborted nodules arrested at all stages of pre-emergent and post-emergent development and formed significantly fewer mature nodules than the wild type. Experiments revealed that nodulation of mungbean plants is sensitive to exogenous ethylene, and that the ethylene inhibitors aminoethoxyvinylglycine and Co2+ were able to partially restore a wild-type nodulation pattern to the rhizobitoxine mutants. This is the first demonstration of a nodulation phenotype of the rhizobitoxine mutants and suggests that rhizobitoxine plays a positive and necessary role in Rhizobium-legume symbiosis through its inhibition of ethylene biosynthesis.


1982 ◽  
Vol 203 (1) ◽  
pp. 149-153 ◽  
Author(s):  
P R Levison ◽  
G Tomalin

Subsites in the S2-S4 region were identified in human plasma kallikrein. Kinetic constants (kcat., Km) were determined for a series of seven extended N-aminoacyl-L-arginine methyl esters based on the C-terminal sequence of bradykinin (-Pro-Phe-Arg) or (Gly)n-Arg. The rate-limiting step for the enzyme-catalysed reaction was found to be deacylation of the enzyme. It was possible to infer that hydrogen-bonded interactions occur between substrate and the S2-S4 region of kallikrein. Insertion of L-phenylalanine at residue P2 demonstrates that there is also a hydrophobic interaction with subsite S2, which stabilizes the enzyme-substrate complex. The strong interaction demonstrated between L-proline at residue P3 and subsite S3 is of greatest importance in the selectivity of human plasma kallikrein. The purification of kallikrein from Cohn fraction IV of human plasma is described making use of endogenous Factor XIIf to activate the prekallikrein. Kallikreins I (Mr 91 000) and II (Mr 85 000) were purified 170- and 110-fold respectively. Kallikrein I was used for the kinetic work.


1975 ◽  
Vol 30 (7-8) ◽  
pp. 438-441
Author(s):  
Klaus Brendel ◽  
Rubin Bressler ◽  
Miguel A. Alizade

Abstract An isotope effect of the dehydrogenation of (R) Carnitine [(R) 3-hydroxy-4-trimethylamino-butyric acid hydrochloride] catalyzed by (R) carnitine dehydrogenase [(R) carnitine: NAD oxido-reductase E.C. 1.1.1.108] from Pseudomonas aeruginosa was measured at different temperatures. It was found that k1H/k3H does not vary greatly with changes of temperature. The value of 3 for k1H/k3H measured at small initial conversions strongly indicated that the rate limiting step of the oxidation of (R) carnitine is the cleavage of the C-H bond at C3.


1997 ◽  
Vol 322 (3) ◽  
pp. 701-708 ◽  
Author(s):  
Trevor M. KITSON ◽  
Kathryn E. KITSON

Resorufin acetate is a very good substrate for sheep liver cytosolic aldehyde dehydrogenase, both from the point of view of practical spectrophotometry and in terms of information provided about the nature of the catalysis shown by this enzyme. p-Nitrophenyl (PNP) acetate competes against resorufin acetate for the enzyme's active site (although relatively weakly as the latter substrate has the lower Michaelis constant), but acetaldehyde (in the presence of NAD+) inhibits the hydrolysis of resorufin acetate only at very high aldehyde concentration. In the absence of cofactor, the rate-limiting step in the hydrolysis of resorufin acetate and of PNP acetate is hydrolysis of the common acetyl-enzyme, as shown by the observation of bursts of chromophoric product and very similar values of kcat. In the presence of NAD+ or NADH, however, the deacylation step with resorufin acetate is greatly accelerated until acylation seems to become rate-limiting, because no burst is seen under these conditions. Millimolar concentrations of Mg2+ activate the hydrolyis of resorufin acetate both in the presence and absence of cofactors. With both Mg2+ and cofactor the kcat for hydrolysis of resorufin acetate is 30–35 s-1; this is three orders of magnitude higher than the kcat for aldehyde oxidation in the presence of Mg2+, showing that the enzyme's potential catalytic efficency is very much hampered by the slowness with which NADH dissociates from its binding site. The pH profile for the hydrolysis of resorufin acetate in the presence of NAD+ or NADH fits well to a theoretical ionization curve of pKa approx. 8.2; it is suggested that this might belong to the enzyme's putative catalytic residue (Cys-302).


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