The Impact of Exogenous Aerobic Bacteria on Sustainable Methane Production Associated with Municipal Solid Waste Biodegradation: Revealed by High-Throughput Sequencing

Sai Ge, Jun Ma, Lei Liu and Zhiming Yuan
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Sai Ge: State Key Laboratory of Geomechanics and Geotechnical Engineering, Institute of Rock and Soil Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan 430071, China
Jun Ma: State Key Laboratory of Geomechanics and Geotechnical Engineering, Institute of Rock and Soil Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan 430071, China
Lei Liu: State Key Laboratory of Geomechanics and Geotechnical Engineering, Institute of Rock and Soil Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan 430071, China
Zhiming Yuan: Key Laboratory of Special Pathogens, Wuhan Institute of Virology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan 430071, China

Sustainability, 2020, vol. 12, issue 5, 1-11

Abstract: In this work, the impact of exogenous aerobic bacteria mixture (EABM) on municipal solid waste (MSW) is well evaluated in the following aspects: biogas production, leachate analysis, organic waste degradation, EABM population, and the composition of microbial communities. The study was designed and performed as follows: the control bioreactor (R1) was filled up with MSW and the culture medium of EABM and the experimental bioreactor (R2) was filled up with MSW and EABM. The data suggests that the composition of microbial communities (bacterial and methanogenic) in R1 and R2 were similar at day 0, while the addition of EABM in R2 led to a differential abundance of Bacillus cereus , Bacillus subtilis , Staphylococcus saprophyticus , Staphlyoccus xylosus , and Pantoea agglomerans in two bioreactors. The population of exogenous aerobic bacteria in R2 greatly increased during hydrolysis and acidogenesis stages, and subsequently increased the degradation of volatile solid (VS), protein, lipid, and lignin by 59.25%, 25.68%, 60.47%, and 197.62%, respectively, compared to R1. The duration of hydrolysis and acidogenesis in R2 was 33.33% shorter than that in R1. At the end of the study, the accumulative methane yield in R2 (494.4 L) was almost three times more than that in R1 (187.4 L). In addition, the abundance of acetoclasic methanogens increased at acetogenesis and methanogenesis stages in both bioreactors, which indicates that acetoclasic methanogens (especially Methanoseata ) could contribute to methane production. This study demonstrates that EABM can accelerate organic waste degradation to promote MSW biodegradation and methane production. Moreover, the operational parameters helped EABM to generate 20.85% more in accumulative methane yield. With a better understanding of how EABM affects MSW and the composition of bacterial community, this study offers a potential practical approach to MSW disposal and cleaner energy generation worldwide.

Keywords: anaerobic digestion; municipal solid waste; microbial communities; exogenous aerobic bacteria; methane production; methanogenic bacteria (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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