Advanced anaerobic biotechnologies for transformation of municipal solid organic waste to (bio)chemicals

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Effective management of municipal solid waste (MSW) is vital for protecting public health and ensuring environmental sustainability. Landfilling of waste is the primary method of waste disposal in Canada, which can lead to adverse health and environmental effects, including formation of toxic gases, greenhouse gas emissions and pollution of subsurface environment. To address these issues, municipalities across Canada have set a zero-waste target to divert organic waste from landfills by 2030-2040. This has spurred interest in the development of technologies for sustainable management of organic fraction of municipal solid waste (food waste, garden waste, paper, etc.), which accounts for 30-40% of the waste disposed. Anaerobic biotechnologies provide dual advantage of simultaneous treatment and recovery of high-value products from organic waste and are therefore amongst the most promising solutions to this challenge. The proposed research focuses on the development of anaerobic biotechnologies for the conversion of solid organic waste to high-value chemicals such as carboxylates. Carboxylates are industrially important chemicals and are currently produced from non-renewable petrochemicals. Thus, anaerobic transformation of organic waste to carboxylates establishes an environmentally benign process for organic waste management and turns an environmental liability (organic waste) into an economic opportunity for Canada. The current anaerobic processes for conversion of organic waste to carboxylates suffers from the following major drawbacks: i) low degradation rate of the organic matter, ii) necessity of pre-treatment and dilution of organics due to unsuitable reactor designs and iii) lack of measures to capture carbon dioxide (CO2) generated during carboxylates production. The proposed research will address these critical drawbacks to advance sustainable, waste-derived carboxylates production. The applicant will pursue three key objectives to meet these goals: i) engineer a novel dry fermenter (DF) with an in-built technology for accelerating waste degradation rates and carboxylates production, ii) develop a microbial electrosynthesis (MES) system for subsequent conversion of CO2 generated in DF to carboxylates, to maximize carboxylates yield from organic waste and iii) fundamental understanding and optimization of the biological system (microbial populations) in DF and MES to further enhance carboxylate production, and create a highly effective and economical solution for sustainable organic waste management. This research program will also produce the next generation of highly qualified personnel (HQP) in the field of sustainable waste management by providing hands-on training on advanced analytical techniques and state of the art biotechnologies for resource recovery from waste. The HQP will lead innovation in this area and place Canada at the forefront in the fast-growing clean technology market.