Continuous experiments were conducted to study the influence of pH in the range 4.0–6.5 on the acidification of dairy wastewater at 37°C with 12 hours of hydraulic retention in an upflow reactor. Results showed that degradation of dairy pollutants increased with pH from pH 4.0 to 5.5. At pH 5.5, 95% of carbohydrate, 82% of protein and 41% of lipid were degraded. Based on chemical oxygen demand ...

In a continuous culture under phosphate limitation the metabolism of Clostridium acetobutylicum depends on the external pH level. By comparing seven steady-state conditions between pH 5.7 and pH 4.5 we show that the switch from acidogenesis to solventogenesis occurs between pH 5.3 and pH 5.0 with an intermediate state at pH 5.1. Here, an integrative study is presented investigating how a changi...

Treatment of starch wastewater was investigated in a 30 l capacity pilot scale anaerobic baffled reactor (ABR) under mesophillic conditions. The reactor was operated at different hydraulic retention times (HRTs) of 72; 48 and 24 h. Corresponding organic loading rates (OLRs) were 8.7; 7.6 and 22 kg COD/m 3 . d. The results showed that COD and BOD5 removals exceeded 40 and 50% respectively at OLR...

Streptococcus mutans is the leading cause of dental caries worldwide by accumulating a glycogen-like internal polysaccharide (IPS) that contributes to cariogenicity when sugars are in excess. Sodium monofluorophosphate (MFP) is an active anticariogenic compound in toothpastes. Herein, we show that MFP inhibits (with an I0.5 of 1.5 mM) the S. mutans ADP-glucose pyrophosphorylase (EC 2.7.7.27), w...

Clostridium beijerinckii is an anaerobic bacterium used for the fermentative production of acetone and butanol. The recent availability of genomic sequence information for C. beijerinckii NCIMB 8052 has allowed for an examination of gene expression during the shift from acidogenesis to solventogenesis over the time course of a batch fermentation using a ca. 500-gene set DNA microarray. The micr...

The effect of tetracycline (TC) antibiotic on biogas generation in anaerobic wastewater treatment was studied. A lab-scale Anaerobic Baffled Reactor (ABR) with three compartments was used. The reactor was operated with synthetic wastewater in the absence of TC and in the presence of 250 μg/L TC for 90 days, respectively. The removal rate of TC, volatile fatty acids (VFAs), biogas compositions (...

Clostridium acetobutylicum is able to switch from acidogenic growth to solventogenic growth. We used phosphate-limited continuous cultures that established acidogenic growth at pH 5.8 and solventogenic growth at pH 4.5. These cultures allowed a detailed transcriptomic study of the switch from acidogenesis to solventogenesis that is not superimposed by sporulation and other growth phase-dependen...

Carbon dioxide (CO2) enrichment of anaerobic digesters (AD) was previously identified as a potential on-site carbon revalorisation strategy. This study addresses the lack of studies investigating this concept in up-scaled units and the need to understand the mechanisms of exogenous CO2 utilisation. Two pilot-scale ADs treating food waste were monitored for 225 days, with the test unit being per...

Anaerobic digestion is an effective biotechnological process for treatment of different agricultural, municipal and industrial wastes. However, it is a very unstable process in regard to the biogas reactors operation. This is due to the complicated interactions between different microbial species as well as of the complex transformations of the organic matter affected by a variety of environmen...

The modern closed digesters are becoming more popular for treating palm oil mill effluent (POME) and are currently being installed nationwide in Malaysia to replace the conventional open lagoons and tanks treatment system. This paper describes an accelerated start-up of the 500 m semi-commercial anaerobic digester 3 treating POME and methane gas recovery for clean development mechanism (CDM) pr...