Methanogenic performance and microbial community during thermophilic digestion of food waste and sewage sludge in a high-solid anaerobic membrane bioreactor

Yemei Li; Jialing Ni; Hui Cheng; Aijun Zhu; Guangze Guo; Yu Qin; Yu-You Li

doi:10.1016/j.biortech.2021.125938

Methanogenic performance and microbial community during thermophilic digestion of food waste and sewage sludge in a high-solid anaerobic membrane bioreactor

Bioresour Technol. 2021 Dec:342:125938. doi: 10.1016/j.biortech.2021.125938. Epub 2021 Sep 14.

Authors

Yemei Li¹, Jialing Ni², Hui Cheng¹, Aijun Zhu¹, Guangze Guo³, Yu Qin¹, Yu-You Li⁴

Affiliations

¹ Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Graduate School of Engineering, Tohoku University, 6-6-06 Aoba, Aramaki-Aza, Sendai, Miyagi 980-8579, Japan.
² Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Graduate School of Engineering, Tohoku University, 6-6-06 Aoba, Aramaki-Aza, Sendai, Miyagi 980-8579, Japan; Department of Chemical Engineering, Graduate School of Engineering, Tohoku University, 6-6-07 Aoba, Aramaki-Aza, Sendai, Miyagi 980-8579, Japan.
³ Department of Frontier Science for Advanced Environment, Graduate School of Environmental Sciences, Tohoku University, 6-6-20 Aoba, Aramaki-Aza, Sendai, Miyagi 980-8579, Japan.
⁴ Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Graduate School of Engineering, Tohoku University, 6-6-06 Aoba, Aramaki-Aza, Sendai, Miyagi 980-8579, Japan; Department of Frontier Science for Advanced Environment, Graduate School of Environmental Sciences, Tohoku University, 6-6-20 Aoba, Aramaki-Aza, Sendai, Miyagi 980-8579, Japan. Electronic address: gyokuyu.ri.a5@tohoku.ac.jp.

PMID: 34547708
DOI: 10.1016/j.biortech.2021.125938

Abstract

The methanogenic performance and microbial community of the thermophilic anaerobic mono-digestion and co-digestion of food waste and sewage sludge in a high-solid membrane bioreactor were investigated by a continuous experiment. The methane recovery rate of the system reached 98.0% and 89.0% when the substrate was pure food waste and 25% sewage sludge substitution, respectively. Kinetics characterization showed that hydrolysis was the rate-limiting step in both mono-digestion and co-digestion while methanogenic performance and microbial community were significantly affected by feed condition. The dominant archaea for methane generation shifted from Methanothermobacter thermophilus (72.82%) to Methanosarcina thermophila (96.25%) with sewage sludge gradually added from 0% to 100% in the substrate. The relationships between digestion performance, such as the accumulation of soluble proteins in the reactor, and functional microbial groups were also carefully analyzed. Finally, reasonable metabolic pathways for mono-digestion and co-digestion were summarized.

Keywords: AnMBR; Co-digestion; Food waste; Microbial community; Sewage sludge.

MeSH terms

Anaerobiosis
Bioreactors
Digestion
Food
Microbiota*
Refuse Disposal*
Sewage

Substances

Sewage