Molecular biology tools for identifying microrganisms in neregy-recovering wastewater treatment processes

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Energy-recovering biotechnologies have drawn tremendous attention in these days, as energy security and climate change become societal issues. Of them, anaerobic membrane bioreactor producing methane, microbial electrochemical cell (MEC) generating electricity or hydrogen gas, or biofibre production from agricultural wastes is very attractive in that we can recover valuable energy from waste biomass, along with its stabilization. To commercialize these energy-generating biotechnologies, we should address several limitations. One of them is to control the growth of microorganisms because waste biomass typically contains microbial sources, resulting in complicated interactions among microorganisms. Interested microorganisms (e.g., hydrogenotrophic methanogens in anaerobic membrane bioreactor or anode-respiring bacteria in the MEC) would be outcompeted by other microbes having large growth yield or kinetic parameters, which can fail bioprocess performance. In contrast, unknown syntrophic interactions among microorganisms could improve energy recovery. For these reasons, to control, monitor, or understand the growths of interested microorganisms or microbial interactions is significant for the success of the energy recovery bioprocesses.