Carbon monoxide inhibition on acidogenic glucose fermentation and aceticlastic methanogenesis

Abstract

Syngas and CO-rich off-gases are key chemical platforms to produce biofuels and bioproducts. From the perspective of optimizing and up-scaling CO co-digestion with organic waste streams, this study aims at assessing and quantifying the inhibitory effects of CO on acidogenic glucose fermentation and aceticlastic methanogenesis. Mesophilic cultures were fed in two sets of batch assays, respectively, with glucose and acetate while being exposed to dissolved CO in equilibrium with partial pressures in the range of 0.25–1.00 atm. Cumulative methane production and microbial monitoring revealed that aceticlastic methanogenic archaea were significantly inhibited (2–20 % of the methane production of CO non-exposed cultures). The acidogenic glucose degrading community was also inhibited by CO, although, thanks to its functional redundancy, shifted its metabolism towards propionate production. Future work should assess the sensitivity of hereby estimated CO inhibition parameters, e.g., on the simulation output of a continuous syngas co-digestion process with organic substrates.