Advanced Biological Platform for Generation of High-Purity Methane and Other Products: A Circular Economy Approach

用于生成高纯度甲烷和其他产品的先进生物平台：循环经济方法

• 批准号: RGPIN-2022-04753
• 负责人: Kermanshahipour, Azadeh
• 金额: $ 2.04万
• 依托单位: Dalhousie University
• 依托单位国家: 加拿大
• 项目类别: Discovery Grants Program - Individual
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 加拿大
• 起止时间: 2022-01-01 至 2023-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ase-oro/Details-Detailles_eng.asp?id=763618
• 关键词: Advanced; Biological; Platform; Generation; Purity

Conventional organic waste management mainly relies on landfilling, incineration, and composting, all of which are associated with significant environmental impacts including, greenhouse emission, air pollution and soil and water contamination. These technologies are not based on efficient resource recovery or aligned with the circular economy approach. Biological processes such as anaerobic digestion (AD) of organic waste offers potential, however; significant research must be directed towards addressing the technical challenges including variable waste composition and loading rate, low energy yield, process instability, and limited knowledge on the efficient valorization of digestate. Additionally, the implementation of anaerobic digestion in cold climates represents a knowledge gap that should be filled. We aim to address the above challenges by building upon the knowledge generated from our multi-year research into anaerobic digestion-microalgae cultivation biorefinery and develop a novel in-situ biomethanation process for production of high-purity methane from mixed organic waste (e.g., food waste and waste sludge), while recovering nutrients and other bioproducts. In the process of in-situ biomethanation, catalyzed by archaea platform, the bioconversion of carbon dioxide to methane is driven by hydrogen gas supplementation. The major challenges identified is metabolic limitation due to the inhibitory effects of increased partial pressure of hydrogen, and physico-chemical limitation arising from low gas-liquid mass transfer of hydrogen. The configuration of novel Anaerobic Baffled Reactor (ABR), developed in our lab will be modified. We hypothesize that installing a network of pipes for even flow distribution, hydrogen supplementation to the last compartment, which is rich in methanogens and incorporating membrane to reduce wash-out will result in higher biodegradation rate, process stability, methane purity and enhanced robustness with respect to waste heterogeneity and load fluctuation. A closed-loop organic waste valorization approach will be possible by recovering nutrients from digestate. Microalgae cultivation on digestate as well as photobioelectrochemical system will be individually evaluated for nutrient recovery.  We hypothesize that innovative system design, acclimatization and developing algae-bacteria consortium will eliminate significant dilution required to overcome the inhibitory effect of digestate constituents on algal growth. Our proposed approach will target the key challenges in the organic waste management sector including the mixed waste heterogeneity, flowrate fluctuation, relative low energy yield and loss of valuable nutrients. Implementing a holistic array of novel advanced archaea-bacteria platform integrated with nutrient recovery approaches offers significant potential to transform organic waste management systems into a sustainable, revenue generating platform, aligned with the concept of circular economy.

传统的有机废弃物管理主要依靠填埋、焚烧和堆肥，所有这些都与重大的环境影响有关，包括温室气体排放、空气污染以及土壤和水污染。这些技术并不基于有效的资源回收，也不符合循环经济方法。生物过程，如有机废物的厌氧消化（AD）提供了潜力，但是，重要的研究必须针对解决的技术挑战，包括可变的废物成分和加载速率，低能量产量，过程不稳定，以及有限的知识有效的稳定状态。此外，在寒冷气候中实施厌氧消化是一个应该填补的知识空白。我们的目标是通过建立在我们对厌氧消化-微藻培养生物炼制的多年研究中产生的知识来应对上述挑战，并开发一种新的原位生物甲烷化工艺，用于从混合有机废物（例如，食物废物和废物污泥），同时回收营养物质和其他生物产品。在古菌平台催化的原位生物甲烷化过程中，通过补充氢气驱动二氧化碳生物转化为甲烷。所确定的主要挑战是由于氢分压增加的抑制作用引起的代谢限制，以及氢的低气液传质引起的物理化学限制。对本实验室开发的新型厌氧折流板反应器（ABR）的结构进行了改进。我们假设，安装一个网络的管道，均匀的流量分布，氢补充到最后一个隔间，这是丰富的产甲烷菌和结合膜，以减少冲洗将导致更高的生物降解率，工艺稳定性，甲烷纯度和增强的鲁棒性方面的废物异质性和负载波动。一个闭环的有机废物增值方法将有可能通过回收营养物质从厌氧状态。微藻培养的亚稳态以及光电化学系统将分别评估为nutrientrecovery.We假设，创新的系统设计，驯化和发展藻菌财团将消除显着的稀释所需的克服亚稳态成分对藻类生长的抑制作用。我们提出的方法将针对有机废物管理领域的主要挑战，包括混合废物的异质性，流量波动，相对较低的能量产量和有价值的营养物质的损失。实施一系列新型先进古细菌平台与营养物回收方法相结合，为将有机废物管理系统转变为可持续的创收平台提供了巨大的潜力，符合循环经济的概念。