Mixed culture fermentation of synthesis gas in the microfiltration and ultrafiltration hollow-fiber membrane biofilm reactors

Hua-Jie Wang; Kun Dai; Yun-Qi Wang; Hou-Feng Wang; Fang Zhang; Raymond Jianxiong Zeng

doi:10.1016/j.biortech.2018.07.098

Mixed culture fermentation of synthesis gas in the microfiltration and ultrafiltration hollow-fiber membrane biofilm reactors

Bioresour Technol. 2018 Nov:267:650-656. doi: 10.1016/j.biortech.2018.07.098. Epub 2018 Jul 21.

Authors

Hua-Jie Wang¹, Kun Dai², Yun-Qi Wang³, Hou-Feng Wang², Fang Zhang², Raymond Jianxiong Zeng⁴

Affiliations

¹ CAS Key Laboratory for Urban Pollutant Conversion, Department of Chemistry, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230026, PR China; School of Environmental and Chemical Engineering, Anhui Vocational and Technical College, Hefei, Anhui 230011, PR China.
² Centre of Wastewater Resource Recovery, College of Resources and Environment, Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University, Fuzhou, Fujian 350002, PR China.
³ CAS Key Laboratory for Urban Pollutant Conversion, Department of Chemistry, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230026, PR China.
⁴ CAS Key Laboratory for Urban Pollutant Conversion, Department of Chemistry, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230026, PR China; Centre of Wastewater Resource Recovery, College of Resources and Environment, Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University, Fuzhou, Fujian 350002, PR China. Electronic address: rzeng@ustc.edu.cn.

PMID: 30059945
DOI: 10.1016/j.biortech.2018.07.098

Abstract

The effects of pore sizes on the in-situ utilization of synthesis gas (syngas, H₂ and CO) mixed culture fermentation (MCF) in the hollow-fiber membrane biofilm reactor (HfMBR) are not clear. Thus, the ultrafiltration (R1) and microfiltration (R2) HfMBRs were constructed. Syngas was totally consumed within the formed biofilm in R1; contrarily, it accumulated notably in R2. In the batch mode of R1 and R2, volatile fatty acids (VFAs) of acetate, butyrate and caproate were the main metabolites, but the production rate of total VFA in R1 (61.9 mmol-C/(L·d)) was higher than that of R2 (27.6 mmol-C/(L·d)). In the continuous mode, the R1 performance was much better than that of R2, and the biofilm in R2 was even washed out. Furthermore, Clostridium (30.0%) was the main genus in the enriched biofilm of R1, which converted syngas to VFAs. Thus, the ultrafiltration membrane shall be the suitable candidate for syngas MCF.

Keywords: Hollow fiber membrane biofilm reactor (HfMBR); Microfiltration; Mixed culture fermentation; Synthesis gas; Ultrafiltration; Volatile fatty acids.

MeSH terms

Biofilms*
Bioreactors
Clostridium
Fermentation*
Ultrafiltration