Dadic, B.; Ivankovic, T.; Spelic, K.; Hrenovic, J.; Jurisic, V. Natural Materials as Carriers of Microbial Consortium for Bioaugmentation of Anaerobic Digesters. Appl. Sci.2024, 14, 6883.
Dadic, B.; Ivankovic, T.; Spelic, K.; Hrenovic, J.; Jurisic, V. Natural Materials as Carriers of Microbial Consortium for Bioaugmentation of Anaerobic Digesters. Appl. Sci. 2024, 14, 6883.
Dadic, B.; Ivankovic, T.; Spelic, K.; Hrenovic, J.; Jurisic, V. Natural Materials as Carriers of Microbial Consortium for Bioaugmentation of Anaerobic Digesters. Appl. Sci.2024, 14, 6883.
Dadic, B.; Ivankovic, T.; Spelic, K.; Hrenovic, J.; Jurisic, V. Natural Materials as Carriers of Microbial Consortium for Bioaugmentation of Anaerobic Digesters. Appl. Sci. 2024, 14, 6883.
Abstract
Biogas is mainly produced by anaerobic digestion (AD) using organic matter as a substrate. In Mediterranean countries, a promising substrate is lignocellulose biomass of perennial grass Miscanthus x giganteus, due to its potentially high biogas yields, which could be comparable to maize silage. During AD, bacteria convert biomass into more minor compounds, which are further converted to methane by methanogenic archaea. The selection of appropriate microbes for the degradation of the substrate is crucial, and the enhancement of this step lies in the immobilization of microbes on biocarriers. Here, a microbial consortium, de-novo isolated and conditioned to degrade the Mischantus biomass, was immobilized onto several natural biocarriers: natural zeolitized tuff (NZ), ZeoSand®, perlite, and corncob. There was no statistically signifi-cant difference in the numbers of immobilized bacteria between the materials. Therefore, all proved to be suitable for the immobilization of the consortium. In the consortium, five bacterial species with different shares in the consortium were identified: Enterobacter cloacae, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Enterobacter asburiae, Leclercia adecarboxylata, and Exiguobacterium indicum. After im-mobilization on each carrier, the share of each species changed when compared to starting conditions, and the most dominant species was E. cloacae (71-90%), while the share for other species ranged from 2-23%. The share of E. indicum was around 14 % at the start. However, it diminished to less than 1% because it was overgrown during the competition with other bacterial species, not due to an inability to immobilize. For future research, single species could be separately immobilized onto carriers, depending on their degradation capacity, thus creating the targeted and optimized biocarriers.
Biology and Life Sciences, Biology and Biotechnology
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