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Exhausted Fungal Biomass as a Feedstock for Increasing Methane Production During the Anaerobic Digestion of Organic Wastes

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Abstract

Biochemical methane potential tests of exhausted fungal biomass were assessed in batch assays at mesophilic temperature to study the feasibility of an anaerobic digestion treatment to valorize this substrate. The inocula used were collected from two different sources: the anaerobic digester of a wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) and an anaerobic reactor treating the organic fraction of municipal solid waste (OFMSW). The results showed higher methane yields when using the WWTP inocula (595 mL CH4/g VSfeed) compared with the inocula obtained from the digester treating OFMSW (281 mL CH4/g VSfeed). Further experiments evaluated biogas production of fungal biomass when β-estradiol (E2) and 17α-ethinylestradiol (EE2) were spiked onto the substrate at a concentration of 2 mg/L respectively. No differences in methane yield were detected at the end of the experiments for spiked and non-spiked biomass (367 and 307 mL CH4/g VSfeed, respectively), confirming no toxic effect of the hormones at the concentration tested. This study confirms the feasibility of anaerobic digestion treatment for the valorization of fungal substrate containing these emerging pollutants.

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Acknowledgments

This work has been funded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness and FEDER (projects CTQ2010-21776-C02 and CTM2013-48545-C2-1-R) and supported by the Generalitat de Catalunya (Consolidated Research Groups 2014-SGR-476). The Department of Chemical Engineering of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) is a member of the Xarxa de Referència en Biotecnologia de la Generalitat de Catalunya. Andrea Hom-Díaz acknowledges the pre-doctoral grant from AGAUR (2013FI_B 00302).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Chemical Engineering Department, Escola d’Enginyeria, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Cerdanyola del Vallès, Bellaterra, 08193, Barcelona, Spain

    Andrea Hom-Diaz, Paqui Blánquez, Lucía Martín-González & Teresa Vicent

  2. Industrial Engineering Department, University of Florence, Via Santa Marta 3, 50139, Florence, Italy

    Francesco Baldi

  3. University Niccolò Cusano, Via Don Carlo Gnocchi 3, 00166, Rome, Italy

    Lidia Lombardi

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  1. Andrea Hom-Diaz
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Correspondence to Andrea Hom-Diaz.

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Hom-Diaz, A., Baldi, F., Blánquez, P. et al. Exhausted Fungal Biomass as a Feedstock for Increasing Methane Production During the Anaerobic Digestion of Organic Wastes. Waste Biomass Valor 7, 307–315 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12649-015-9450-8

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