Acid pretreatment and fractionation of source-separated organic waste for lignocellulosic saccharification

This study compared two acidic pretreatments on Source-Separated Organic (SSO) waste preprocessed by Aufbereitungs Technology and System thermal-screw, on the basis of fermentable sugars for bioethanol production. The result showed that the SSO contained on average 27% glucan, 5.4% xylan, 1.2% arabinan, 5.7% mannan and 1.2% galactan. Dilute sulfuric acid pretreatment (at 121°C and 16.2 psi) was insufficient to solubilize cellulose and hemicellulose and did not remove much of the lignin. Cellulose-solvent and Organic Solvent-based Lignocellulose Fractionation (COSLIF) (at 50°C and atmospheric pressure) generated high glucose yield (70%). Substituting ethanol for acetone as organic solvent increased the yield to 89.5%. Fermentation using Zymomonas mobilis 8b with this hydrolysate confirmed the pretreatment is promising for the SSO conversion. Amenability of the SSO for biofuel production is validated. Enzymatic hydrolysis of both pretreatments using Accellerase 1500 is preferred over Celluclast 1.5L due to higher activity. Future work includes design of an appropriate batch and/or continuous bioreactor, and further understanding of Zymomonas mobilis 8b.

Acid pretreatment and fractionation of source-separated organic waste for lignocellulosic saccharification

This study compared two acidic pretreatments on Source-Separated Organic (SSO) waste preprocessed by Aufbereitungs Technology and System thermal-screw, on the basis of fermentable sugars for bioethanol production. The result showed that the SSO contained on average 27% glucan, 5.4% xylan, 1.2% arabinan, 5.7% mannan and 1.2% galactan. Dilute sulfuric acid pretreatment (at 121°C and 16.2 psi) was insufficient to solubilize cellulose and hemicellulose and did not remove much of the lignin. Cellulose-solvent and Organic Solvent-based Lignocellulose Fractionation (COSLIF) (at 50°C and atmospheric pressure) generated high glucose yield (70%). Substituting ethanol for acetone as organic solvent increased the yield to 89.5%. Fermentation using Zymomonas mobilis 8b with this hydrolysate confirmed the pretreatment is promising for the SSO conversion. Amenability of the SSO for biofuel production is validated. Enzymatic hydrolysis of both pretreatments using Accellerase 1500 is preferred over Celluclast 1.5L due to higher activity. Future work includes design of an appropriate batch and/or continuous bioreactor, and further understanding of Zymomonas mobilis 8b.

Using A Novel Continuous Bioreactor In Enhancing The Biogas Production

Background: Since fossil fuels are limited and their burning is considered the main reason for environmental pollution, thinkers in the energy section are looking for a substitute for them. They have considered biogas as a potent replacement. Constant composition and volumetric rate, are ones of the challenges faced in term of using biogas. Therefore, in this study, a novel easily portable continuous bioreactor was designed and constructed to produce biogas at constant composition and volumetric rate, which is suitable for human uses. Sugar beet waste and anaerobic sludge were used as substrate and inoculum with an S/I ratio of 0.5 to 1, to produce biogas. Four parameters, i.e., hydraulic retention time (HRT), pH, biogas volume, and methane composition, were measured and compared.Results: The results of the mentioned reactor were compared with those of batch ones. The measurement revealed that the continuous reactor had a good performance on biogas purity and volumetric rate. The biogas contained about 53% methane. The suitable and preferable HRT and organic loading rate (OLR) were 18 days and 34.86 g VS/day. After the 18th day of operation, the biogas production process inside the continuous reactor was stable reaching about 411.2 ml STD/g VS per day.Conclusions: The reactor designed makes the biogas production process more manageable. Besides the production of the cumulative volume of biogas and constant methane percentage was achieved. As a result, the biogas produced is consumed daily, and a certain amount of gas is available every day. Since the percentage of gas produced is constant, it is possible to adjust the gas appliances with this amount of methane.

Stability and Performance Analysis of Bioethanol Production with Delay and Growth Inhibition in a Continuous Bioreactor with Recycle

This paper proposes and analyzes a mathematical model for the production of bioethanol in a continuous bioreactor with recycling. The kinetics correspond to the use of Saccharomyces bayanus for the fermentation of sugars found in wastewater from soft drinks. The proposed model considers product growth latency, which was experimentally found in batch studies of ethanol production. Furthermore, the inhibition effect of ethanol is expressed by a modified version of the classical Andrew’s model for substrate inhibition. The proposed model consists of only three ordinary differential equations containing a minimal number of operating parameters, which include the bioreactor residence time, glucose feed concentration, recycle ratio and the fraction of biomass removed from the reactor by the flow. The positivity and the boundedness of solutions of the model were confirmed under reasonable restrictions of parameters. The stability analysis showed that there is a value of residence time at which an exchange of stability occurs between the trivial washout and non-washout solutions. This critical value depends only on the substrate feed concentration, biomass death rate, recycle ratio and purge fraction. Dynamic simulations of the model were carried out for substrate concentration in the range of 100–250 g/L, commonly used for the production of ethanol. An inverse response due to the inhibition effects of ethanol was observed in the time evolution of substrate and biomass concentrations. Parametric studies showed that ethanol concentration increases with the recycle ratio, with the inverse of residence time and with the inverse of purge fraction. The effect of ethanol latency has, on the other hand, a substantial effect on ethanol concentration. Despite its unstructured nature and the fact that some parameters such as temperature and acidity were not taken into consideration, the proposed model managed to provide useful results on the bioreactor-settler stability and the effect of key parameters on its dynamic behavior, which could pave the way for future optimization studies.

Ammonia oxidation at pH 2.5 by a new gammaproteobacterial ammonia-oxidizing bacterium

Ammonia oxidation was considered impossible under highly acidic conditions, as the protonation of ammonia leads to decreased substrate availability and formation of toxic nitrogenous compounds. Recently, some studies described archaeal and bacterial ammonia oxidizers growing at pH as low as 4, while environmental studies observed nitrification at even lower pH values. In this work, we report on the discovery, cultivation, and physiological, genomic, and transcriptomic characterization of a novel gammaproteobacterial ammonia-oxidizing bacterium enriched via continuous bioreactor cultivation from an acidic air biofilter that was able to grow and oxidize ammonia at pH 2.5. This microorganism has a chemolithoautotrophic lifestyle, using ammonia as energy source. The observed growth rate on ammonia was 0.196 day−1, with a doubling time of 3.5 days. The strain also displayed ureolytic activity and cultivation with urea as ammonia source resulted in a growth rate of 0.104 day−1 and a doubling time of 6.7 days. A high ammonia affinity (Km(app) = 147 ± 14 nM) and high tolerance to toxic nitric oxide could represent an adaptation to acidic environments. Electron microscopic analysis showed coccoid cell morphology with a large amount of intracytoplasmic membrane stacks, typical of gammaproteobacterial ammonia oxidizers. Furthermore, genome and transcriptome analysis showed the presence and expression of diagnostic genes for nitrifiers (amoCAB, hao, nor, ure, cbbLS), but no nirK was identified. Phylogenetic analysis revealed that this strain belonged to a novel bacterial genus, for which we propose the name “Candidatus Nitrosacidococcus tergens” sp. RJ19.