Our societies generate increasing volumes of organic wastes. Considering that we also need alternatives to oil, an opportunity exists to extract liquid fuels or even industrial solvents from these abundant wastes. Anaerobic undefined mixed cultures can handle the complexity and variability of organic wastes, which produces carboxylates that can be efficiently converted to useful bioproducts. Ho...

The objective of this research was to evaluate the oyster mushroom Pleurotus ostreatus- (Jacq.: Fr.) Kumm. cultivation in substrates based on different combinations of wastes (leaf, pseudo-stem and pseudo-stem + leaf) and banana cultivars - Musa spp. (Thap Maeo, Prata AnãPelipita and Caipira) during 49 days. Organic matter loss in the substrate by action of the fungus was also evaluated during ...

Anaerobic digestion is an old biological wastewater treatment process, having first been studied more than a century ago. It is a multistep process in which organic matter is degraded into a gas mixture of methane and carbon dioxide by microorganisms. It thus reduces the Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD) of the influent and produces valuable energy (methane). The biological scheme involves several m...

In Hong Kong, landfill dumping has been a main approach for municipal solid wastes disposal and will be continued in the near future. However, gaseous emission from municipal waste may causes offensive odours and disturbs the neighbours around landfill sites. Usually there are not enough buffer zones between landfill sites and the nearest sensitive receptors due to a land restriction in Hong Ko...

Nature has demonstrated some subtle and intricate mechanisms for selectively controlling the mobility of metal pollutants in the environment. However, the application of this science to technology has been disappointing. A small number of pilot-plant studies have been carried out to investigate the potential of microorganisms (primarily bacteria) to remove metals from liquid wastes but only one...

edible shiitake mushroom is a relatively fragrant mushroom and grows on different types of dead hard woods. this mushroom ranks second in the world in total yearly mushroom production. on the hand, thousand tons of agricultural wastes are burned or discarded yearly. hence, to evaluate the shiitake mushroom production possibility on agricultural wastes, an experiment designed based on completely...

At present in Germany there are 61 plants for Mechanical(-Biological) Treatment (M(B)T) of residual wastes with a total capacity of about 6.4 million tons per year. They can be classified in four process concepts: material stream separation, mechanical-biological stabilization (with a biological drying process), mechanical-physical stabilization (with a thermal drying process) and mechanical(-b...

Hydrogen is a valuable gas as a clean energy source and as feedstock for some industries. Therefore, demand on hydrogen production has increased considerably in recent years. Electrolysis of water, steam reforming of hydrocarbons and auto-thermal processes are well-known methods for hydrogen gas production, but not cost-effective due to high energy requirements. Biological production of hydroge...