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

随着能源安全和气候变化成为社会问题，能源回收生物技术引起了人们的极大关注。其中，厌氧膜生物反应器产生甲烷，微生物电化学电池（MEC）产生电或氢气，或从农业废弃物生产生物纤维是非常有吸引力的，因为我们可以从废弃生物质中回收有价值的能量，沿着其稳定性。为了使这些产生能量的生物技术商业化，我们应该解决几个限制。其中之一是控制微生物的生长，因为废弃生物质通常含有微生物源，导致微生物之间复杂的相互作用。感兴趣的微生物（例如，厌氧膜生物反应器中的氢营养产甲烷菌或MEC中的阳极呼吸细菌）将被具有大生长产率或动力学参数的其它微生物竞争，这可能使生物工艺性能失效。相反，微生物之间未知的互养相互作用可以提高能量回收。由于这些原因，控制、监测或了解感兴趣的微生物的生长或微生物相互作用对于能量回收生物过程的成功是重要的。

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.