Cultivation of Oleaginous Microorganism Consortium on Municipal Wastewater for the Production of Lipids

Alternative fuels are necessary to meet the increasing demands for fuels. Alternative fuels such as biodiesel are produced using vegetable oils, which are prominentt in the food industry. An alternate feedstock could be oil-producing microorganisms. These oleaginous microorganisms are defined as accumulating more than 20% of their weight in oil as lipids. Cultivating these microorganisms for oil production is not economical due to the high production costs from the sugars in the culture medium. Municipal wastewater could be a potential growth medium that has not previously been considered for cultivating oleaginous microorganisms. However, municipal wastewater contains a low concentration of carbon, which does not promote oil accumulation in the oleaginous microorganisms. To increase the carbon concentration in the wastewater, lignocellulosic sugars could be added to the municipal wastewater. These sugars are a potential alternative to sugars that are in the food industry. The goal of this research is to determine the efficacy of using municipal wastewater to cultivate a consortium of oleaginous microorganisms, thus, producing oil for biodiesel production. First, a consortium of oleaginous microorganisms was cultivated on autoclaved wastewater to determine if the wastewater contains any inhibiting substances for the microorganisms. In addition to the substances in the wastewater, indigenous microorganisms are possible inhibitors to the consortium. Therefore, to determine the effect these indigenous microorganisms have on the oleaginous microorganisms, the consortium was cultivated on raw municipal wastewater amended with varying amounts of sugar. Since the municipal wastewater can be used as a cultivation medium, the effect of the addition of lignocellulosic sugars was determined. During the production of lignocellulosic sugars, furfural and acetic acid, known microbial inhibitors, are formed. The effect of these inhibitors on the consortium’s growth and oil accumulation ability was ascertained, and inhibition models were developed to describe their impact. With these results, SuperPro Designer v6.0 was used to perform simulations and economic analyses to determine the efficacy of incorporating an oleaginous microorganism consortium in a wastewater treatment facility

Scientific Opinion on the public health hazards to be covered by inspection of meat from farmed game

Salmonella spp. in farmed wild boar and Toxoplasma gondii in farmed deer and farmed wild boar were ranked as a high priority for meat inspection. Trichinella spp. in wild boar was ranked as low priority due to current controls, which should be continued. For chemical hazards, all substances were ranked as medium or lower potential concern. More effective control of biological hazards could be achieved using an integrated farm to chilled carcass approach, including improved food chain information (FCI) and risk-based controls. Further studies are required on Salmonella spp. in farmed wild boar and T. gondii in farmed wild boar and farmed deer. If new information confirms a high risk to public health from meat from these species, setting targets at carcass level should be considered. Palpation and incision should be omitted, as it will not detect biological hazards considered to be a high priority for meat inspection while increasing the potential spread and cross-contamination of the carcasses with Salmonella. Palpation and/or incision may be applied where abnormalities have been detected but away from the slaughter line. However the elimination of routine palpation and incision would be detrimental for detecting tuberculosis. As farmed deer and farmed wild boar can act as tuberculosis reservoirs, any reduction in the detection, due to changes in the post-mortem inspection procedures, will have consequences for the overall surveillance of tuberculosis. Monitoring programmes for chemical hazards should be more flexible and based on the risk of occurrence, taking into account FCI, which should be expanded to reflect the specific environmental conditions of the farms where the animals are reared, and the ranking of chemical substances, which should be regularly updated and include new hazards. Control programmes across the food chain, national residue control programmes, feed control and monitoring of environmental contaminants should be better integrated