Biocathodic Methanogenic Community in an Integrated Anaerobic Digestion and Microbial Electrolysis System for Enhancement of Methane Production from Waste Sludge

By Weiwei Cai, Wenzong Liu, Chunxue Yang, Ling Wang, Bin Liang, S. Thangavel, Zechong Guo, Aijie Wang. 2016

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Understanding the microbial community structure relative to enhancement of methane production from digestion of waste-activated sludge (WAS) coupled with a bioelectrochemical system is a key scientific question for the potential application of bioelectrochemistry in biogas production. Little has been known about the influence of electrode on the structure and function of microbial communities, especially methanogens in a bioelectrochemical anaerobic digestion (AD) reactor. Here, a hybrid reactor, which coupled bioelectrolysis and AD, was developed to enhance methane recovery from WAS. The methane production rate reached up to 0.0564 m3 methane/(m3 reactor*d) in the hybrid reactor at room temperature, which was nearly double than that of the control anaerobic reactor (0.0259 m3 methane/(m3reactor*d)) without bioelectrochemical device. Microbial community analysis revealed that hydrogenotrophic methanogen Methanobacterium dominated the cathode biofilm, which was the predominant contributor to accelerate the...

Subfields: Building and Construction, Environmental Chemistry, Environmental Engineering

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/3d7e11daacf8e8e6587ba4ef7562bdf3bf040937