Biocarrier-driven enhancement of caproate production via microbial chain elongation: Linking metabolic redirection and microbiome assembly.

This study investigated the effects of five representative biocarriers-biochar (BC), activated carbon (AC), nano-magnetite (NM), zero-valent iron (ZVI), and polyurethane sponge (PUS)-on chain elongation (CE) from ethanol/acetate in anaerobic systems. All carriers enhanced CE to varying extents. BC and NM significantly increased caproate yields (6032.

Hydrous ferric arsenate transformation coupled with As, Fe, and S environmental cycling in sulfidic systems under anoxic and circumneutral conditions.

Despite many studies on the environmental cycling of As, Fe, and S, sulfide (S(-II))-induced hydrous ferric arsenate (HFA) transformation remains to be elucidated. Herein, we investigated the anaerobic reaction of HFA with S(-II) at three environmental concentrations (1, 10, and 50 mM) at pH 48. Changes in solid-phase As, Fe, and S speciation were investigated by XRD, FTIR, Raman, XPS, synchrotron XANES, SEM, and TEM.

Mixed culture chain elongation for consumption of acetate and ethanol in anaerobic fermentation: The impact of salt type, dosage and acclimation.

Microbial chain elongation is a newly developed carboxylate platform-based bioprocess, which often encounters high salinity stress due to saline feedstock and pH adjustment. In this study, we systematically investigated the effects of salt types (Na, K, and NH), dosage, and salinity acclimation on microbial chain elongation, and identified the microbial community by high throughput 16S rRNA gene sequencing. The results showed that a high level of Na and NH (12.

Mechanical property and heavy metal leaching behavior enhancement of municipal solid waste incineration fly ash during the pressure-assisted sintering treatment.

The conventional sintering process of municipal solid waste incineration (MSWI) fly ash is always energy intensive. The process forms a cracked structure because of the difficulty in forming the liquid phase to enhance the mass transfer process. Therefore, exploring a new disposal method to simultaneously decrease the sintering temperature and improve the mechanical and heavy metal leaching properties of sintered samples is necessary.

Valorization of hydrothermal carbonization products by anaerobic digestion: Inhibitor identification, biomethanization potential and process intensification.

Integrating hydrothermal carbonization (HTC) and anaerobic digestion for biorefinery-oriented full utilization of wet organic wastes is a promising emerging technology. The objectives of this study were to identify the potential inhibitory substances, evaluate the biomethane potential of mixed and aqueous products and explore process intensifying strategies. The results indicated that the high HTC temperature of 240 °C resulted in a significantly low methane yield of 60 ± 5 mL/g COD and a high Short chain fatty acid (SCFAs) accumulation of 4174 ± 76 mg/L.

Efficiently sintering of MSWI fly ash at a low temperature enhanced by in-situ pressure assistant: Process performance and product characterization.

Municipal solid waste incineration (MSWI) fly ash disposal is an urgent task with some technical bottlenecks. In this study, a novel pressure-assisted sintering method was employed to treat the MSWI fly ash. A series of pressure-assisted sintering experiments were carried out by varying mechanical pressures and sintering temperatures, and their properties of compressive strength, density and heavy metals leaching behavior were determined to screen out the optimal conditions.

Enhanced biomethanization of waste polylactic acid plastic by mild hydrothermal pretreatment: Taguchi orthogonal optimization and kinetics modeling.

Polylactic acid (PLA) plastic is becoming a popular alternative to traditional petroleum-based plastics, but the biodegradability in engineered biological system is still a matter of concern. In this study, the biodegradability of PLA plastic at mesophilic and thermophilic AD were investigated, and a hydrothermal pretreatment was proposed to enhance the hydrolysis of PLA plastic and subsequent biomethanization. For raw PLA plastic, the biodegradation results indicated that PLA was hardly biodegraded at mesophilic conditions (only 50.

Influencing mechanism of zinc mineral contamination on pyrolysis kinetic and product characteristics of corn biomass.

The metal mineral has a complex influence on the thermal decomposition of biomass due to the sophisticated structure of biomass and parallel reactions. Therefore, the influencing mechanisms of metal minerals on biomass decomposition kinetic expressions needed to be thoroughly investigated. In this study, the decomposition of the three major components of biomass was considered separately.

Integrated thermal behavior and compounds transition mechanism of municipal solid waste incineration fly ash during thermal treatment process.

Thermal behavior of municipal solid waste incineration (MSWI) fly ash is extremely complicated due to the simultaneously occurred reactive processes and the products with different chemical compositions, therefore, the investigation of chemical compounds transition behavior and mechanism during the integrated thermal process is of great significance. In this study, the macro-thermal treatment of fly ash and thermo-gravimetric analysis via non-isothermal methods were carried out and Málek method was firstly introduced to explore the mechanism of multi-step reaction for fly ash. The mineral transition results suggested that the halite, sylvite in the raw fly ash transformed to more complex crystals in treated samples, such as chlorellestadite, polyhalite and enstatite during the thermal process.

Inhibition of norfloxacin on anaerobic digestion: Focusing on the recoverability and shifted microbial communities.

Antibacterial properties of norfloxacin (NOR) could cause adverse impact on engineered biological process. In this study, the objective was to investigate the inhibitory effects of NOR on anaerobic digestion focusing on the recoverability and microbial community changes. The effects of different concentrations of NOR on anaerobic digestion were studied with three continuous feed cycles.

Enhancement of anaerobic digestion of phoenix tree leaf by mild alkali pretreatment: Optimization by Taguchi orthogonal design and semi-continuous operation.

This study aimed at evaluating the valorization of a typical yard waste, phoenix tree leaf (PTL), through mild alkali pretreatment followed by anaerobic digestion (AD). To this end, L Taguchi orthogonal biochemical methane potential (BMP) tests and semi-continuous AD experiments were conducted to examine the optimum pretreatment condition and the long term effect of alkali pretreatment on AD. The community structure evolutions were analyzed by high throughput 16S rRNA gene pyrosequencing.

Anaerobic co-digestion of sewage sludge, food waste and yard waste: Synergistic enhancement on process stability and biogas production.

Anaerobic co-digestion (co-AD) could be a more sustainable waste management solution by sharing the existed anaerobic digestion (AD) facilities and generating more biogas energy. In this study, a series of co-AD of different urban derived organic wastes (sewage sludge-SS, food waste-FW, yard waste-YW) were conducted in a semi-continuous mode, and the corresponding dynamic evolutions of microbial community structure were followed by using real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR). As for co-AD of two feedstocks, introduction of SS (25%, VS basis) in FW significantly improved the process stability and archaea/total microbe ratio (from 0.

Antagonistic effect of zinc oxide nanoparticle and surfactant on anaerobic digestion: Focusing on the microbial community changes and interactive mechanism.

The objective of this study was to evaluate the antagonistic effect of emerging pollutants of zinc oxide nanoparticles (ZnO NPs) and sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) on anaerobic digestion and explore their potential mechanism. The results indicated that at a low inhibitory concentration of ZnO NPs (1.0 mM), the practical co-inhibition was decreased by 24% and 18% in co-existence of 50 mg/L SDS and 300 mg/L SDS, respectively.

Synergistic effects of anionic surfactants on adsorption of norfloxacin by magnetic biochar derived from furfural residue.

Norfloxacin (NOR) is a persistent organic pollutant and can be effectively removed from effluent by adsorption of biochar. However, the presence of other emerging contaminants, such as surfactants, will potentially alter adsorption performance of norfloxacin by biochar and the molecular-scale mechanisms of the interaction between surfactants and biochar remain poorly understood. In this study, adsorption of norfloxacin on magnetic biochar prepared with iron-containing furfural residue (FRMB) in the presence or absence of anionic surfactants was investigated.

Multivariate insights of bulking agents influence on co-biodrying of sewage sludge and food waste: Process performance, organics degradation and microbial community.

As a prerequisite additive, bulking agent played an essential role on organic wastes biodrying by affecting the organics degradation and microbial consortia. In this study, a series of experiments were conducted to explore the relationships among the type of bulking agents, organics degradation and microbial community evolution. In line with the excellent physiochemical properties, corncob was found to be more desirable for biodrying with more water removal (62.

Energetic enhancement of thermal assistance in the cooling stage of biodrying by stimulating microbial degradation.

In this study, thermal assistance was employed in the cooling stage of conventional biodrying. The results indicated that thermal assistance greatly enhanced water removal with improved vapor-carrying capacity of air-flow, and rapidly decreased moisture contents (MCs) from 45.15% to 49.

Thermally assisted bio-drying of food waste: Synergistic enhancement and energetic evaluation.

Recently, bio-drying is becoming a promising method to treat the slurry-type food waste together with recovering refused derived fuels (RDFs). In practice, however, conventional process frequently encountered low temperature and inefficient drying performance due to the low microbial activity and organics degradability. In order to improve bio-drying performance, in this study, an externally thermal assistant strategy was proposed to increase water evaporation and stimulate microbial degradability.

Semi-continuous anaerobic digestion of extruded OFMSW: Process performance and energetics evaluation.

Recently, extrusion press treatment shows some promising advantages for effectively separating of organic fraction of municipal solid waste (OFMSW) from the mixed MSW, which is critical for their following high-efficiency treatment. In this study, an extruded OFMSW obtained from a demonstrated MSW treatment plant was characterized, and submitted to a series of semi-continuous anaerobic experiments to examine its biodegradability and process stability. The results indicated that the extruded OFMSW was a desirable substrate with a high biochemical methane potential (BMP), balanced nutrients and reliable stability.