1 research outputs found
Feasibility of sunflower oil cake degradation with three different anaerobic consortia
8 pages, 7 tables, 3 figures, 36 references. The authors
thank Dr. Fernando G. Fermoso for his valuable
discussions during the preparation of the manuscript.Sunflower oil cake (SuOC) is the solid by-product from the sunflower oil extraction process and an important pollutant waste because
of its high organic content. For the anaerobic digestion of SuOC three different industrial reactors were compared as inoculum
sources. This was done using a biochemical methane production (BMP) test. Inoculum I was a granular biomass from an industrial
reactor treating soft-drink wastewaters. Inoculum II was a flocculent biomass from a full-scale reactor treating biosolids generated in
an urban wastewater treatment plant. Inoculum III was a granular biomass from an industrial reactor treating brewery wastes. The
highest kinetic constant for methane production was achieved using inoculum II. The inoculum sources were analyzed through PCR
amplification of 16S rRNA genes and fingerprinting before (t = 0) and after the BMP test (t = 12 days). No significant differences
were found in the bacterial community fingerprints between the beginning and the end of the experiments. The bacterial and archaeal
communities of inoculum II were further analyzed. The main bacteria found in this inoculum belong to Alphaproteobacteria
and Chloroflexi. Of the Archaea detected, Methanomicrobiales and Methanosarcinales made up practically the whole archaeal
community. The results showed the importance of selecting an appropriate inoculum in short term processes due to the fact that the
major microbial constituents in the initial consortia remained stable throughout anaerobic digestion.The authors wish to express their gratitude to “Junta de
Andalucía” (“Plan Andaluz de Investigación”) for the financial
support to groups BIO288 and AGR204, to the
Spanish Ministry of “Ciencia and Innovación” (Project
reference CTM2008-05772/ TECNO) and to the contracts
JAE-Doc from “Junta para la Ampliación de Estudios del
CSIC” co-financed by European Social Funds.Peer reviewe