Proceedings of the 2nd Chinese-Austrian Workshop on Environmental Odour: Odour Emission - Dispersion - Impact Assessment - Abatement

Environmental odour is perceived as major nuisance by rural as well as by urban populations. The sources of odorous substances are manifold. In urban areas restaurants, small manufacturing businesses and other sources can be found inside residential areas. In the suburbs we can expect waste water treatment plants, landfill sites and other infra structures as major causing sources. These problems are often aggravated be the accelerated growth of cities. In rural spaces, livestock farming and the spreading of manure on the fields is blamed for severe odour nuisance. As a matter of fact, environmental odours are considered to be a common cause of public complaints by residents to local authorities, regional or national environmental agencies. In the 1st Chinese-Austrian Workshop on Environmental Odour held in Tianjin, China in February 2015 this environmental issue was addressed to compile experiences in this field. Participants from several universities as well as state agencies took part. The goal of this workshop was to establish cooperations in this field. One of the major results of this workshop was a bilateral joint project between the University of Science and Technology Beijing and Austrian partner organisations. The proceedings of this workshop were published in Volume 8 of the Austrian Contributions to Veterinary Epidemiology, a journal, which offers open access to all papers. In February 2016, the 2nd Chinese-Austrian Workshop on Environmental Odour was held in Shanghai, as one of the hotspots of environmental odour research in China. The workshop was hosted by Prof. Dr. Pinjing He, Institute of Waste Treatment & Reclamation at the College of Environmental Science and Engineering, Tongji University in Shanghai. The workshop included the following topics (1) Characterisation of odour sources by emission factors and emission models, (2) Monitoring of odour emission in diverse environments, (3) Equipment and methods of odour measurement, and (4) Assessment of the relevant stimuli concentration and the odour impact criteria. Prof. Dr. Pinjing He and his team deserve gratitude for the successful organisation on site and his Austrian counterpart Prof. Dr. Günther Schauberger from the University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna for the initiation and organisation of the meeting. Both are the guest editors for this issue. The workshop as well as Volume 9 of the Austrian Contributions to Veterinary Epidemiology was partly funded by Eurasia-Pacific Uninet as a network, which aims at establishing contacts and scientific partnerships between Austrian universities and member institutions in East Asia, Central Asia, South Asia and the Pacific region. In the light of the current air quality crisis confronting China and the world, I am confident that such bilateral efforts are an incentive for finding future solutions by cooperation of our two countries

Improvement in biohythane production using organic solid waste and distillery effluent

Biohythane is a two-stage anaerobic fermentation process consisting of biohydrogen production followed by biomethanation. This serves as an environment friendly and economically sustainable approach for the improved valorization of organic wastes. The characteristics of organic wastes depend on their respective sources. The choice of an appropriate combination of complementary organic wastes can vastly improve the bioenergy generation besides achieving the significant cost reduction. The present study assess the suitability and economic viability of using the groundnut deoiled cake (GDOC), mustard deoiled cake (MDOC), distillers’ dried grain with solubles (DDGS) and algal biomass (AB) as a co-substrate for the biohythane process. Results showed that maximum gaseous energy of 23.93, 16.63, 23.44 and 16.21 kcal/L were produced using GDOC, MDOC, DDGS and AB in the two stage biohythane production, respectively. Both GDOC and DDGS were found to be better co-substrates as compared to MDOC and AB. The maximum cumulative hydrogen and methane production of 150 and 64 mmol/L were achieved using GDOC. 98% reduction in substrate input cost (SIC) was achieved using the co-supplementation procedure

One-step production of C6–C8 carboxylates by mixed culture solely grown on CO

Abstract Background This study aimed at producing C6–C8 medium-chain carboxylates (MCCAs) directly from gaseous CO using mixed culture. The yield and C2–C8 product composition were investigated when CO was continuously fed with gradually increasing partial pressure. Results The maximal concentrations of n-caproate, n-heptylate, and n-caprylate were 1.892, 1.635, and 1.033 mmol L−1, which were achieved at the maximal production rates of 0.276, 0.442, and 0.112 mmol L−1 day−1, respectively. Microbial analysis revealed that long-term acclimation and high CO partial pressure were important to establish a CO-tolerant and CO-utilizing chain-elongating microbiome, rich in Acinetobacter, Alcaligenes, and Rhodobacteraceae and capable of forming MCCAs solely from CO. Conclusions These results demonstrated that carboxylate and syngas platform could be integrated in a shared growth vessel, and could be a promising one-step technique to convert gaseous syngas to preferable liquid biochemicals, thereby avoiding the necessity to coordinate syngas fermentation to short-chain carboxylates and short-to-medium-chain elongation. Thus, this method could provide an alternative solution for the utilization of waste-derived syngas and expand the resource of promising biofuels

MOESM3 of Enzyme disintegration with spatial resolution reveals different distributions of sludge extracellular polymer substances

Additional file 3. Calculation of carbon and nitrogen contained in organics. The obtained values on protein, polysaccharide and DNA in EPS were converted into the basis of carbon or nitrogen, according to their molecular formula. Accordingly, the equations for carbon calculation and nitrogen calculation were listed. The purpose of calculation was to compare with the directly measured values of DOC and DN. The calculation results are shown