Effects of Environmental and Nutritional Conditions on Mycelium Growth of Three Basidiomycota.

In recent decades, an enormous potential of fungal-based products with characteristics equal to, or even outperforming, classic petroleum-derived products has been acknowledged. The production of these new materials uses mycelium, a root-like structure of fungi consisting of a mass of branching, thread-like hyphae. Optimizing the production of mycelium-based materials and fungal growth under technical conditions needs to be further investigated. The main objective of this study was to select fast-growing fungi and identify optimized incubation conditions to obtain a dense mycelium mat in a short time. Further, the influence of the initial substrate characteristics on hyphae expansion was determined. Fungal isolates of Ganoderma lucidum, Pleurotus ostreatus, and Trametes versicolor were cultivated for seven days on substrate mixtures consisting of various proportions of pine bark and cotton fibers. Furthermore, the substrates were mixed with 0, 2, and 5 wt.% calcium carbonate (CaCO3), and the incubator was flushed with 0, 5, and 10 vol.% carbon dioxide (CO2). All samples grew in the dark at 26 °C and a relative humidity of 80%. Evaluation of growth rate shows that cotton fiber-rich substrates performed best for all investigated fungi. Although Pleurotus ostreatus and Trametes versicolor showed comparatively high growth rates of up to 5.4 and 5.3 mm d-1, respectively, mycelium density was thin and transparent. Ganoderma lucidum showed a significantly denser mycelium at a maximum growth rate of 3.3 mm d-1 on a cotton fiber-rich substrate (75 wt.%) without CaCO3 but flushed with 5 vol.% CO2 during incubation.

Two-stage anaerobic digestion: State of technology and perspective roles in future energy systems.

Two-stage anaerobic digestion (TSAD) systems have been studied on a laboratory scale for about 50 years. However, they have not yet reached industrial scale despite their potential for future energy systems. This review provides an analysis of the TSAD technology, including the influence of process parameters on biomass conversion rates. The most common substrate (35.2% of the 38 selected studies) used in the analysed data was in the category of rapidly hydrolysable industrial waste with an average dry matter content of 7.24%. The highest methane content of 85% was reached when digesting food waste in a combination of two mesophilic continuously stirred tank reactors with an acidic (pH 5.5) first stage and alkaline (pH 7) second stage. Therefore, the review shows the limitations of the TSAD technology, future research directions, and the effect of integration of TSAD systems into the current strategy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Model Predictive Control: Demand-Orientated, Load-Flexible, Full-Scale Biogas Production.

Biogas plants have the great advantage that they produce electricity according to demand and can thus compensate for fluctuating production from weather-dependent sources such as wind power and photovoltaics. A prerequisite for flexible biogas plant operation is a suitable feeding strategy for an adjusted conversion of biomass into biogas. This research work is the first to demonstrate a practical, integrated model predictive control (MPC) for load-flexible, demand-orientated biogas production and the results show promising options for practical application on almost all full-scale biogas plants with no or only minor adjustments to the standardly existing measurement technology. Over an experimental period of 36 days, the biogas production of a full-scale plant was adjusted to the predicted electricity demand of a "real-world laboratory". Results with a mean absolute percentage error (MAPE) of less than 20% when comparing biogas demand and production were consistently obtained.

Modeling and Simulation of Biogas Production in Full Scale with Time Series Analysis.

Future biogas plants must be able to produce biogas according to demand, which requires proactive feeding management. Therefore, the simulation of biogas production depending on the substrate supply is assumed. Most simulation models are based on the complex Anaerobic Digestion Model No. 1 (ADM1). The ADM1 includes a large number of parameters for all biochemical and physicochemical process steps, which have to be carefully adjusted to represent the conditions of a respective full-scale biogas plant. Due to a deficiency of reliable measurement technology and process monitoring, nearly none of these parameters are available for full-scale plants. The present research investigation shows a simulation model, which is based on the principle of time series analysis and uses only historical data of biogas formation and solid substrate supply, without differentiation of individual substrates. The results of an extensive evaluation of the model over 366 simulations with 48-h horizon show a mean absolute percentage error (MAPE) of 14-18%. The evaluation is based on two different digesters and demonstrated that the model is self-learning and automatically adaptable to the respective application, independent of the substrate's composition.

Steam Explosion Conditions Highly Influence the Biogas Yield of Rice Straw.

Straws are agricultural residues that can be used to produce biomethane by anaerobic digestion. The methane yield of rice straw is lower than other straws. Steam explosion was investigated as a pretreatment to increase methane production. Pretreatment conditions with varying reaction times (12-30 min) and maximum temperatures (162-240 °C) were applied. The pretreated material was characterized for its composition and thermal and morphological properties. When the steam explosion was performed with a moderate severity parameter of S0 = 4.1 min, the methane yield was increased by 32% compared to untreated rice straw. This study shows that a harsher pretreatment at S0 > 4.3 min causes a drastic reduction of methane yield because inert condensation products are formed from hemicelluloses.

Intrinsic gas production kinetics of selected intermediates in anaerobic filters for demand-orientated energy supply.

As a consequence of a growing share of solar and wind power, recent research on biogas production highlighted a need for demand-orientated, flexible gas production to provide grid services and enable a decentralized stabilization of the electricity infrastructure. Two-staged anaerobic digestion is particularly suitable for shifting the methane production into times of higher demand due to the spatio-temporal separation of hydrolysis and methanogenesis. To provide a basis for predicting gas production in an anaerobic filter, kinetic parameters of gas production have been determined experimentally in this study. A new methodology is used, enabling their determination during continuous operation. An order in methane production rate could be established by comparing the half lives of methane production. The order was beginning with the fastest: acetic acid>ethanol>butyric acid>iso-butyric acid>valeric acid>propionic acid>1,2propanediol>lactic acid. However, the mixture of a natural hydrolysate from the acidification tank appeared to produce methane faster than all single components tested.

Kinetics of biogas production in Anaerobic Filters.

This study investigates methane production kinetics from individual volatile fatty acids (VFA) in an Upflow Anaerobic Filter (AF). 1gCOD in the form of acetic (HAc), propionic (HPr) or butyric acid (HBu) was injected into the AF while operating at an organic loading rate (OLRCOD) of 3.5gL(-1)d(-1). A new method is introduced to separate gas production of the baseload from the product formation of VFA degradation after the injection. The lag phase, fractional rate of gas production and half-life has been determined for the methane production of the three VFAs. The half-lives were in the order HAc