Investigating Low Temperature Dry Anaerobic Digestion of Nitrogen Rich Organic Feedstock

畜禽粪便管理是一项重要的环境和社会挑战。它通过释放温室气体排放、气味、病原体以及地表水和地下水污染对畜牧业产生负面影响。然而，粪便可以通过厌氧消化（AD）处理，这可以解决上述负面影响并产生生物燃料。本研究旨在研究和开发一种低温干燥的富氮（N）肥料AD（N-rich LTDAD）作为一种生物技术，用于处理猪和家禽粪便，并在新的条件组合（低温，高固体，高氮负荷）下产生甲烷。虽然它提供了一个技术和社会解决方案，但它将在适应新条件的过程中产生有关动力学和微生物动力学的基本知识。本研究的目的是开发LTDAD作为一种环境友好，成本效益和易于使用的生物技术来处理富含N的猪和家禽粪便，阐明其适应性，动力学和微生物动力学。其目的是：1-填补差距，我们的理解在适应低温，高固体，高氮负荷的微生物群落的变化; 2-评估适应策略，并确定启动适应策略; 3-阐明生物炭的动力学，微生物动力学和生理变化的文化在适应过程中的影响。它还评估了适应时间高氨水平的LTDAD的性能和稳定性的影响下，增加有机负荷率，增加氮负荷率，增加固体含量，降低接种物-基质比，并减少治疗时间。它将提高我们的理解微生物/结构和生理适应诱导的变化，使用细胞壁膜磷脂生物标志物，并将它们与分子生物学方法的结果相关联。从长远来看，该计划的目标是将实验室SBR放大1000倍，评估其稳定性和性能，并发现适应诱导的脂质分布变化是否影响氨通过细胞壁的扩散率。这项研究的成果将改善农业部门，并提供环境，社会，经济，健康和气候效益。从这项研究中获得的丰富的氮LTDAD的改进知识可以受益于其他富含氮的废物，如屠宰场，肉类，鱼类，食品加工和动物农场死亡。它还将通过其培训和推广计划带来社会经济效益。它将培训8名学生，培养他们的专业能力，并支持一项外联方案，让当地社区的高中生和教师参与促进纽芬兰的环境生物技术。这项研究将与申请人正在进行的模仿相结合，该模仿是在荷兰圣约翰的莱斯特奶牛场的一个教育农场，重点是牲畜和农业废物管理和生物能源。

Livestock manure management is an important environmental and social challenge. It negatively impacts the livestock industry through release of greenhouse gas emissions, odor, pathogens, and contamination of surface and ground water. However, manure could be treated by anaerobic digestion (AD) which addresses the aforementioned negative impacts and generate biofuel. This research is to investigate and develop a low temperature dry AD of Nitrogen (N)-rich manure (N-rich LTDAD) as a biotechnology to treat swine and poultry manure and produce methane at the novel combination of conditions (low temperature, high solids, and high N-loading). While it provides a technical and social solution, it will generate fundamental knowledge regarding the kinetics and microbial dynamics during adaptation to the new conditions. The objectives of this research is to develop LTDAD as an environmentally-sound, cost-effective and easy-to-use biotechnology to treat N-rich swine and poultry manure, elucidate its adaptation, kinetics, and microbial dynamics. It aims to: 1- fill the gap in our understanding on the microbial community changes during adaptation to low temperature, high solids, and high N-loading; 2- assess adaptation strategies and determine a start-up adaptation strategy; 3- elucidate the effects of biochar on the kinetics, microbial dynamics, and physiological changes in the culture during adaptation. It also assesses the effect of adaptation time to high ammonia levels on the performance and stability of LTDAD under increasing organic loading rate, increasing N-loading rate, increasing solid content, decreasing inoculum-to-substrate ratio, and decreasing treatment duration. It will improve our understanding of the microbiological/structural and physiological adaptation-induced changes using cell wall membrane phospholipid biomarkers and correlate them with the results of molecular biology methods. In a long term, the program aims to scale-up the laboratory SBR by 1000x, evaluate its stability and performance, and find whether the adaptation-induced changes in lipids profile affect ammonia diffusivity through the cell wall. This research's output will improve the farming sector and provide environmental, social, economic, health and climatic benefits. The improved knowledge of N-rich LTDAD gained from this research could benefit other N-rich wastes such as slaughterhouses, meat, fish, food processing, and animal farm mortalities. It will also will bring in socioeconomic benefits through its training and outreach program. It will train 8 students and develop them professionally, and support an outreach program to engage high school students and teachers from the local community to promote environmental biotechnology in Newfoundland. This research will be integrated with an on-going imitative, by the applicant, of an educational farm at the Lester's Dairy Farm in St. John's, NL with a focus on livestock and agriculture waste management and bioenergy.