Kinetic Modelling and Characterization of Microbial Community Present in a Full-Scale UASB Reactor Treating Brewery Effluent

Abstract

The performance of a full-scale upflow anaerobic sludge blanket (UASB) reactor treating brewery wastewater was investigated by microbial analysis and kinetic modelling. The microbial community present in the granular sludge was detected using fluorescent in situ hybridization (FISH) and further confirmed using polymerase chain reaction. A group of 16S rRNA based fluorescent probes and primers targeting Archaea and Eubacteria were selected for microbial analysis. FISH results indicated the presence and dominance of a significant amount of Eubacteria and diverse group of methanogenic Archaea belonging to the order Methanococcales, Methanobacteriales, and Methanomicrobiales within in the UASB reactor. The influent brewery wastewater had a relatively high amount of volatile fatty acids chemical oxygen demand (COD), 2005 mg/l and the final COD concentration of the reactor was 457 mg/l. The biogas analysis showed 60-69% of methane, confirming the presence and activities of methanogens within the reactor. Biokinetics of the degradable organic substrate present in the brewery wastewater was further explored using Stover and Kincannon kinetic model, with the aim of predicting the final effluent quality. The maximum utilization rate constant U max and the saturation constant (K(B)) in the model were estimated as 18.51 and 13.64 g/l/day, respectively. The model showed an excellent fit between the predicted and the observed effluent COD concentrations. Applicability of this model to predict the effluent quality of the UASB reactor treating brewery wastewater was evident from the regression analysis (R(2) = 0.957) which could be used for optimizing the reactor performance.

Methanogenic community composition in an organic waste mixture in an anaerobic bioreactor

“…Methanogens reside in many anaerobic environments, such as sediments, digesters and municipal waste landfill sites (Garcia et al, 2000;Song et al, 2015), and are a difficult group to isolate or culture under laboratory conditions (Enitan et al, 2014;Pervin et al, 2013). Therefore, the development of molecular methods that are independent from cultivation is gaining importance.…”

“…There are a few scientific reports (Enitan et al, 2014;Esposito et al, 2012;Nikolausz et al, 2013) that have collated the microbial consortium involved in anaerobic digestion for precise characterisation and comparison to the methane yield efficiency derived from each stage consortium. We hypothesise that gaining a data set on the methanogen composition using metagenomic tools and comparing it with the potential effectiveness of their activity will identify the essential step and methanogens involved in it, which will affect biogas profitability.…”

Anaerobically-Digested Brewery Wastewater as a Nutrient Solution for Substrate-Based Food Production

“…This integration, and energy generation through anaerobic digestion, could help reduce the high environmental footprint that many soilless urban farms have [57] and be a good way to increase food system sustainability by promoting nutrient reuse and reducing waste treatment energy requirements [5,10]. This integration of sectors opens the door to further synergies; for example, if the soilless production happened in protected environment, CO 2 from the brewing process could be used to enhance plant growth [58], the high temperature of the wastewater [14] could heat the growing space, or spent grains could be a large component of the substrate mix instead of peat [59]. Still, in order to promote the implementation of those solutions, there is a need to develop the knowledge and technologies.…”

“…The large energy requirement for treatment is due to processing the high number of organic compounds in the water. These organic compounds have the potential to produce hydrogen or methane energy if treated anaerobically, and the resulting nutrients could be a source of fertility for agricultural production [12][13][14].…”

Microbiota of a Full-scale UASB Reactor Treating Brewery Wastewater Using Illumina MiSeq Sequencing

“…Methanogenic sludge samples used in the present study for shotgun sequencing were obtained from a full-scale industrial UASB reactor treating brewery wastewater in Durban, South Africa, as earlier described by Enitan et al (2014). One liter of homogenized granular sludge samples was obtained for microbial analysis while influent and effluent from the reactor were collected in one-liter sterile glass bottles each for physicochemical analyses as earlier described in detail by Enitan et al [15]. All the samples were transported to the laboratory at 4°C before analysis.…”