Author(s):
Salvador, A. F.
; Cavaleiro, A. J.
; Pereira, M. A.
; Alves, M. M.
Date: 2008
Persistent ID: http://hdl.handle.net/1822/8532
Origin: RepositóriUM - Universidade do Minho
Description
Background and aims: Anaerobic digestion is an opportunity to generate energy from treatment of
effluents with high lipid content. Nevertheless, long-chain fatty acids (LCFA) usually accumulate within
reactors causing biomass washout and microbial inhibition. Discontinuous operation was suggested as the
optimal strategy to treat LCFA-rich wastewater. In this work, microbial community dynamics was
investigated, during the discontinuous operation of an anaerobic reactor treating a synthetic dairy
wastewater.
Methods: An anaerobic lab scale reactor was operated in cycles, with OLR ranging from 4 to 8
kgCODm-3day-1. Feeding was composed of sodium oleate and skim-milk. Eight biomass samples were
collected during the reactor operation and after DNA extraction, microbial community was studied by
means of PCR-DGGE of the 16S rRNA gene fragments.
Results: DGGE-fingerprints of Archaea and Bacteria showed that bacterial community was more
affected by the operating conditions imposed than the archaeal one. Shifts in microbial community
correlate well with the reactor performance and point out to microbial acclimation, since overall COD
removal efficiency and methane yield increased along time up to 98% and 91%, respectively. Specific
methanogenic acetoclastic and hydrogenotrophic activities increased from 2 and 56 mlCH4(STP)gVS-1d-1 at
the beginning to 246 and 512 mlCH4(STP)gVS-1d-1 at the end of the operation, respectively.
Conclusions: The results obtained show that the discontinuous operation applied promoted gradual
development of a specialized microbial consortium able to efficiently treat LCFA-rich wastewater.