Importance of the methanogenic archaea populations in anaerobic wastewater treatments

Abstract

Methane derived from anaerobic treatment of organic wastes has a great potential to be an alternative fuel. Abundant biomass from various industries could be a source for biomethane production where combination of waste treatment and energy production would be an advantage. This article summarizes the importance of the microbial population, with a focus on the methanogenic archaea, on the anaerobic fermentative biomethane production from biomass. Types of major wastewaters that could be the source for biomethane generation such as brewery wastewater, palm oil mill effluent, dairy wastes, cheese whey and dairy wastewater, pulp and paper wastewaters and olive oil mill wastewaters in relevance to their dominant methanogenic population are fully discussed in this article.

Wastewater Treatment and Reclamation: A Review of Pulp and Paper Industry Practices and Opportunities

“…20. Due to the value of methane as a fuel, and perhaps also the importance of avoiding its release into the atmosphere (Weiland 2010), much research has been devoted to its generation during anaerobic treatment of P&P mill wastewater (Maat and Habets 1987;Korczak et al 1991;Minami et al 1991;Sierraalvarez et al 1991;Vidal et al 1997;Kortekaas et al 1998;Ahn and Forster 2002;Buzzini and Pires 2007;Yilmaz et al 2008;Tabatabaei et al 2010;Lin et al 2011;Saha et al 2011;Elliott and Mahmood 2012;Bayr et al 2013;Ekstrand et al 2013;Hagelqvist 2013;Hassan et al 2014;Meyer and Edwards 2014;Larsson et al 2015). …”

“…In fact, some of the generated effluents already have a relatively high temperature, so they can already be handled in the thermophilic range without further chilling the effluent. Anaerobic wastewater treatment operations are often regarded favorably by environmental advocates because they actively generate methane that can be retrieved and used in place of other combustible fuels (Maat and Habets 1987;Tabatabaei et al 2010;Saha et al 2011;Meyer and Edwards 2014;Sanusi and Menzes 2014). GHG emissions by on-site and off-site processes in a typical industrial wastewater treatment plant that used aerobic, anaerobic, and hybrid anaerobic/aerobic treatment processes were studied by Bani Shahabadi et al (2009Shahabadi et al ( , 2010 and Yerushalmi et al (2011).…”

“…Nevertheless, the retrieving and reuse of biogases such as methane and hydrogen as a source of energy during full-scale treatment operations can provide substantial economic benefits to the treatment plants. Such methane and hydrogen either can be sold or they can be burnt for the generation of heat (Tabatabaei et al 2010). …”

Biochemical methane potential (BMP) of solid organic substrates: evaluation of anaerobic biodegradability using data from an international interlaboratory study

“…Different sources of inoculum could lead to different biodegradability extent and rate values as a consequence of the different levels of microbial population and diversity. 35,36 To evaluate this factor, the results reported for the different participants in the interlaboratory study were classified into two sets of data, one from MWTPs and one from other sources. There was no significant difference in either of the parameters evaluated, theextentandtherateoftheBMPtest.…”

Characterization of the archaeal community fouling a membrane bioreactor

“…Despite these reports, there is still very little data on the association of archaea with biofilm formation on MBR membranes and their impact on MBR performance (Calderón et al, 2013). Since some archaeal groups, such as methanogenic archaea and ammonia oxidizing archaea, are very important in nitrogen and carbon removal processes and prevailing in wastewater treatment activated sludge (Fredriksson et al, 2012;Tabatabaei et al, 2010), it is necessary to study the community diversity of archaeal biofilm on membranes in order to control the biofouling phenomenon in MBR systems.…”