Mixed Culture Processes for Polyhydroxyalkanoate Production from Agro-Industrial Surplus/Wastes as Feedstocks

Unveiling PHA-storing populations using molecular methods

“…Extensive studies have been done on the process engineering to understand the impact of the different SBR-operating conditions on PHA production rates, yields, and final composition (Dionisi et al 2007;Serafim et al 2008b;Villano et al 2010a;Moralejo-Gárate et al 2013;Laycock et al 2014;MontanoHerrera et al 2014;Valentino et al 2014). However, ecological understanding has been consigned to a second plan hindering the development of strategies that cover high selective pressure and high biomass production rate (Reis et al 2011;Albuquerque et al 2013).…”

Fate of β-hexachlorocyclohexane in the mixed microbial cultures (MMCs) three-stage polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHA) production process from cheese whey

“…Indeed, the difference between average b-HCH TOT values at the beginning and at the end of accumulation tests (1128 and 960 lg L -1 , respectively) is comparable with the standard deviation of the average. For this reason, it is reasonable to consider that the added b-HCH was not significantly degraded, at least during 6 h length of test (which is enough time to achieve a high PHA content in the biomass; Reis et al, 2011;Dias et al, 2006;Valentino et al, 2014).…”

“…Finally, the literature (Reis et al, 2011) suggests that the PHA yield on the substrate for the whole three-step process is typically in the range 10-20% gPHA/g substrate; hence, by considering a 99% b-HCH removal, the final b-HCH content in the purified PHA will be quite less that in the original feedstock. The discovery of decontamination potential of the three-step MMCs PHA production from waste opens new perspectives on the applications of PHA with no chemical safety issues, which this paper has been focused on.…”

“…This can be achieved via restructuring current industrial sectors (e.g. food industry) through valorization of by-product and waste streams (Reis et al, 2011).…”

“…Present study was performed by taking into account the well known 3-step production process based on using open microbial communities (Reis et al, 2011;Dias et al, 2006). For the sake of simplicity, only two steps of the biological process were investigated here, i.e.…”