Food waste (FW) has been considered
a potential carbon reservoir
and can be used for high-value volatile fatty acid (VFA) production
via anaerobic fermentation. Nevertheless, more work is needed to unravel
how to regulate the structural defects of FW and enhance microbial
metabolisms for improving VFA production through pretreatment methods.
This work investigated the enhancement of VFA production from FW fermentation
through enhancing depolymerization and stimulating microbial traits
via enzymatic pretreatment. The results exhibited that, after pretreatment,
VFA production was improved by 50.1% compared to the unpretreated
group, and the concentrations of bioavailable substrates (e.g., reducing
sugar and soluble chemical oxygen demand) increased significantly.
Further analysis proved that the enzymatic pretreatment could highly
reduce the particle sizes of FW by 69.3% and thus promoted the solubilization
of substrates and lipids. Meanwhile, the ratio of α-helix/(β-sheet
+ random coil) in the protein secondary structure of FW decreased
from 0.32 to 0.23 after enzymatic pretreatment, indicating that the
pretreatment process accelerated the FW depolymerization. Furthermore,
the organic substrates after the pretreatment were favorable for enriching
the bacteria involved in hydrolysis and acidification (e.g., Olsenella sp. and Sporanaerobacter sp.), upregulating the gene expressions involved in hydrolysis,
pyruvate metabolism, and fatty acid biosynthesis (e.g., malZ, PK, accA, and accC), and stimulating the enzymatic activities involved in acetate and
butyrate formation (e.g., AK, PTA, BK, and PTB), which was in accordance
with the enhanced VFA generation from FW fermentation via enzymatic
pretreatment.