Biomethanization of CO2 in AD plants - amplicon study

Anaerobic digestion uses a variety of organic wastes (domestic, industrial, agricultural) to produce biogas – a mixture of carbon dioxide and methane. Biogas is often used on the industrial application to generate heat and power but can also be upgraded to biomethane and injected directly into the National Grid as a substitute for natural gas. Currently, the upgrading step limits the wider use of biomethane as a gaseous biofuel. In order to increase the biomethane potential, biomethanization can be applied either by adding H2 to the reactor and converting it to methane in presence of endogenous (in-situ) or exogenous (ex-situ) CO2 by the resident microbiome. Here, we upgraded biogas to biomethane using in-situ biomethanization. Using DNA sequencing approaches such as metagenomics and 16S amplicon sequencing the identity of microbial members of the enriched community and their functional potential was uncovered leading to better understanding on how the AD biomethanization process can be manipulated and improved.