Individual Phenolic Acids in Distillery Stillage Inhibit Its Biomethanization

Wioleta Mikucka and Magdalena Zielinska
Additional contact information
Wioleta Mikucka: Department of Environmental Biotechnology, Faculty of Geoengineering, University of Warmia and Mazury in Olsztyn, Sloneczna St. 45G, 10-709 Olsztyn, Poland
Magdalena Zielinska: Department of Environmental Biotechnology, Faculty of Geoengineering, University of Warmia and Mazury in Olsztyn, Sloneczna St. 45G, 10-709 Olsztyn, Poland

Energies, 2022, vol. 15, issue 15, 1-18

Abstract: Polyphenols that are abundant in various organic wastes can inhibit anaerobic degradation of these wastes. This study investigated the effect of the concentration of individual phenolic acids (p-OH benzoic, vanillic, ferulic, sinapic, syringic, and p -coumaric acids) and their mixture on the methane potential of distillery stillage. An increase in phenolic acid concentration adversely affected biogas production and composition, as well as the methane-production rate. The inhibition constants for methane production were 0.5–1.0 g/L of individual phenolic acids and 1.5 g/L of the mixture of these acids. At lower concentrations, the phenolic acids were utilized as a carbon source, but the process was impeded when their concentrations exceeded the threshold value, due to their negative effect on microbial growth. When distillery stillage was spiked with vanillic acid, two-phase methane production was observed. Spiking distillery stillage with vanillic, p -coumaric, syringic, or ferulic acids affected anaerobic digestion the most; 2 g/L of these acids completely inhibited methane production. With 4.0 g/L of all individual phenolic acids, no methane production was observed. As the concentration of these phenolic acids increased from 0.5 to 4.0 g/L, the abundance of methanogenic Archaea, in which acetoclastic methanogens predominated, decreased by about 30 times.

Keywords: anaerobic digestion; distillery stillage; methanogenesis; FISH; PCA (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/15/15/5377/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/15/15/5377/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jeners:v:15:y:2022:i:15:p:5377-:d:871082

Access Statistics for this article

Energies is currently edited by Ms. Agatha Cao

More articles in Energies from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().