Microbiological processes for waste conversion to bioenergy products: Approaches and directions
2011
Hnain, Antoine K. | Cockburn, Lisa M. | Lefebvre, Daniel D.
Waste disposal is one of the most pressing concerns facing modern society. It is becoming increasingly apparent that the majority of organic waste from various residential, agricultural, and industrial sources can be converted by microorganisms into biofuels. These fuels provide valuable renewable energy sources that could significantly lower greenhouse gas emissions such as the passive release of methane from landfill sites. There are four types of biofuels that are produced by microbial action: (i) algal lipids, (ii) alcohols, (iii) methane, and (iv) hydrogen. In contrast to the others, methane production is the product of relatively robust microbial communities. Furthermore, methane can be produced from the residues of other biofuel production systems. The other biofuels are generally produced in single-organism systems, but there is increasing interest in employing syntrophic interaction between microorganisms for their manufacture. This is particularly true for the cellulosic production of ethanol and hydrogen, where cellulose must first be degraded into glucose. Algal lipids made with waste CO₂ from the burning of fuel, and wastewater and wastewater sludge as nutrients, is the only biofuel efficiently produced by algae; however, algae grown on waste material also shows promise as feedstock for the production of other biofuels. The processing of biomass through two or more of these production systems would optimize waste conversion into biofuels.
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