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Bioengineering
Special Issues
Innovative Biotechnological & Microbiological Strategies for Organic Waste Management
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Innovative Biotechnological & Microbiological Strategies for Organic Waste Management

A special issue of Bioengineering (ISSN 2306-5354). This special issue belongs to the section "Biochemical Engineering".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 April 2024 | Viewed by 1922

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Rajinikanth Rajagopal

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Sherbrooke Research and Development Center, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, 2000 College Street, Sherbrooke, QC J1M 0C8, Canada
Interests: waste management; anaerobic digestion; ammonia/greenhouse gas mitigation; biotechnologies
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Parthiba Karthikeyan Obulisamy

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, Rapid City, SD 57701, USA
Interests: solid waste biorefinery; sustainable landfill operations and reclamation; waste to energy; greenhouse gas mitigation; biofuels and bioproducts; Algal bioindustries
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Sustainability is a pressing demand of the century, and lately, has been a vital topic in global research and political agendas. Yet, concurrent boosting of ecological, economic and social goals continues to be enormously challenging. The concept of waste minimization and recycling are decades old, but often fail to ease the burden on natural resources. The water–food–energy nexus clearly has demonstrated that water, food and energy security are inextricably linked. Disruption of any one of them has repercussions on the others. Thus, the integration of clean technologies is essential to produce quality value-added bioproducts and strengthen its bioeconomy.

Cutting-edge (clean) technology is needed to: recover fertilizer nutrients, save energy, release clean water into the environment, reutilize all parts of the waste and capture new value. Furthermore, bio-based products from agricultural/municipal/industrial wastes, which have their origin as solar energy, can achieve a well-balanced C-cycle compared to fossil alternatives. Thus, the transition to a circular economy has enormous industrial potential and significant benefits for a sustainable environment and society. The principle of the circular economy thus complements the renewable character of the bioeconomy and facilitates C-recycling after efficient uses.

This Special Issue aims to bridge different streams of research ranging from life sciences (genomics), engineering and informatics to identifying biological (including microbial conversions) pathways for production of a range of value-added bioproducts, and compare them to all other current and expected options. This will yield us the coveted “Triple bottom line” outcomes: social, ecological and financial.

Dr. Rajinikanth Rajagopal
Dr. Parthiba Karthikeyan Obulisamy
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Bioengineering is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • bio-refinery technologies
  • CleanTech solutions in waste management
  • resource recycling and conservation
  • transformation of organics into bio-products
  • circular economy in waste management
  • microbial ecology and industrial bioprocess engineering
  • technical, economic and legal barriers

Published Papers (2 papers)

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14 pages, 1742 KiB  
Article
Assessment of the Feasibility of Converting the Liquid Fraction Separated from Fruit and Vegetable Waste in a UASB Digester
by Fabrice Tanguay-Rioux, Laurent Spreutels, Caroline Roy and Jean-Claude Frigon
Bioengineering 2024, 11(1), 6; https://doi.org/10.3390/bioengineering11010006 (registering DOI) - 21 Dec 2023
Viewed by 748
Abstract
Anaerobic digestion of food waste still faces important challenges despite its world-wide application. An important fraction of food waste is composed of organic material having a low hydrolysis rate and which is often not degraded in digesters. The addition of this less hydrolysable [...] Read more.
Anaerobic digestion of food waste still faces important challenges despite its world-wide application. An important fraction of food waste is composed of organic material having a low hydrolysis rate and which is often not degraded in digesters. The addition of this less hydrolysable fraction into anaerobic digesters requires a longer hydraulic residence time, and therefore leads to oversizing of the digesters. To overcome this problem, the conversion of the highly biodegradable liquid fraction from fruit and vegetable waste in a up-flow anaerobic sludge blanket (UASB) digester is proposed and demonstrated. The more easily biodegradable fraction of the waste is concentrated in the liquid phase using a 2-stage screw press separation. Then, this liquid fraction is digested in a 3.5 L UASB digester at a high organic loading rate. A good and stable performance was observed up to an organic loading rate (OLR) of 12 g COD/(Lrx.d), with a specific methane production of 2.6 L CH4/(Lrx.d) and a degradation of 85% of the initial total COD. Compared to the conversion of the same initial waste with a continuously stirred tank reactor (CSTR), this new treatment strategy leads to 10% lower COD degradation, but can produce the same amount of methane with a digester that is twice as small. The scale-up of this process could contribute to reduced costs related to the anaerobic digestion of food waste, while reducing management efforts associated with digestate handling and increasing process stability at high organic loading rates. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Innovative Biotechnological & Microbiological Strategies for Organic Waste Management)
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14 pages, 2838 KiB  
Article
Influence of Hydrodynamic Forces on Electroactive Bacterial Adhesion in Microbial Fuel Cell Anodes
by Alexiane Godain, Timothy M. Vogel, Pascal Fongarland and Naoufel Haddour
Bioengineering 2023, 10(12), 1380; https://doi.org/10.3390/bioengineering10121380 - 30 Nov 2023
Viewed by 772
Abstract
This investigation examined the role of shear stress on the dynamic development of microbial communities within anodic biofilms in single-chamber microbial fuel cells (MFCs). Bacterial attachment to surfaces, often regarded as a crucial step in biofilm formation, may significantly contribute to the selection [...] Read more.
This investigation examined the role of shear stress on the dynamic development of microbial communities within anodic biofilms in single-chamber microbial fuel cells (MFCs). Bacterial attachment to surfaces, often regarded as a crucial step in biofilm formation, may significantly contribute to the selection of electroactive bacteria (EAB). It is well established that hydrodynamic forces, particularly shear forces, have a profound influence on bacterial adhesion. This study postulates that shear stress could select EAB on the anode during the adhesion phase by detaching non-EAB. To examine this hypothesis, MFC reactors equipped with a shear stress chamber were constructed, creating specific shear stress on the anode. The progression of adhesion under various shear stress conditions (1, 10, and 50 mPa) was compared with a control MFC lacking shear stress. The structure of the microbial community was assessed using 16S rRNA gene (rrs) sequencing, and the percentage of biofilm coverage was analyzed using fluorescence microscopy. The results indicate a significant impact of shear stress on the relative abundance of specific EAB, such as Geobacter, which was higher (up to 30%) under high shear stress than under low shear stress (1%). Furthermore, it was noted that shear stress decreased the percentage of biofilm coverage on the anodic surface, suggesting that the increase in the relative abundance of specific EAB occurs through the detachment of other bacteria. These results offer insights into bacterial competition during biofilm formation and propose that shear stress could be utilized to select specific EAB to enhance the electroactivity of anodic biofilms. However, additional investigations are warranted to further explore the effects of shear stress on mature biofilms. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Innovative Biotechnological & Microbiological Strategies for Organic Waste Management)
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Planned Papers

The below list represents only planned manuscripts. Some of these manuscripts have not been received by the Editorial Office yet. Papers submitted to MDPI journals are subject to peer-review.

Title: Assessment of the feasibility of converting the liquid fraction separated from fruit and vegetable waste in a UASB reactor
Authors: Fabrice Tanguay-Rioux; Laurent Spreutels; Caroline Roy; Jean-Claude Frigon
Affiliation: NRC-CNRC EME
Abstract: Anaerobic digestion of food waste still faces important challenges despite its world-wide application. An important fraction of food waste is composed of organic material with a low hydrolysis rate and which is often not degraded in digesters. The introduction of this less hydrolysable fraction into anaerobic digesters requires a longer hydraulic residence time, and therefore leads to oversizing of the bioreactors. To overcome this problem, the conversion of the biodegradable liquid fraction from fruit and vegetable waste in an upflow anaerobic sludge blanket (UASB) bioreactor is proposed and demonstrated. The biodegradable fraction of the waste is concentrated in the liquid phase using a 2-stage screw press separation. Then, this liquid fraction is digested with a 3.5L UASB at high organic loading rate. A stable performance was observed up to an OLR of 12 g COD Lrx-1 d-1 with a specific methane production of 3 L CH4 Lrx-1 d-1 and a removal of 70% of the initial total COD. When compared to a continuously stirred tank reactor operated with the same feedstock, 62% of the methane production is achieved, but with an organic load 3 times higher. Globally, the scale up of this process could contribute to considerably reducing costs related to anaerobic digestion of food waste while reducing management efforts associated to digestate treatment.

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