microbial diversity on anaerobic digestion

This study investigated the microbial community response to H2 addition during thermophilic (55C) anaerobic digestion of ricotta cheese whey in a novel hybrid gas stirred tank reactor (GSTR) (50L)used for the biological biogas upgrading to biomethane. The reactor was implemented with a partial immobilization of the microbial community. Sample were collected before and after the H2 addition and at different reactor's depths. The spatial distribution of the microbial consortia, enabled us to gain a deeper understanding on how the microbiome is structured inside the reactor. These functional microbial consortia are mostly uncharacterized, but their interactions are crucial for efficiency of the biological processes. In particular it is well known that the efficiency of the biomethanation process is strongly dependent on a balanced microbial consortium which is specialized in H2 utilization. A deeper characterization of the microbial community structure involved in the biogas upgrading systems will provide useful information for process optimization