Abstract
Nutrient-rich liquid waste streams generated during the beer brewing were treated by submerged fungal growth. Among five filamentous fungal strains tested, Pleurotus ostreatus and Trichoderma harzianum were selected for treatment of run-off from spent grain and hot trub, respectively. In both waste streams, nitrogen was well removed by fungal treatment, with a maximum reduction of 91.5 ± 0.5% of total nitrogen in run-off from spent grain treated with P. ostreatus and 77.0 ± 3.1% in hot trub treated with T. harzianum. Removal of phosphorus was considerably lower, with maximum removal of total phosphorus of 30.8 ± 11.1% for the P. ostreatus treatment and 16.6 ± 7.8% for the T. harzianum treatment. Considering the high concentration of phosphorus in the waste sources (320–600 mg L−1), additional techniques for its removal are needed. In the P. ostreatus treatment, a total amount of 13.2 ± 2.2 g L−1 dwt of biomass with a protein concentration of 11.6 ± 2.1% was produced.
Highlights
Beer production is a significant contributor to the economy in many countries world-wide [1]
Typical liquid waste streams generated during the brewing process are run-off from spent grain from malt mashing and boiling, hot trub from hot wort tank boiling and fermentation slurry [3]
There was no significant difference between P. ostreatus, T. harzianum and T. versicolor as regards biomass production and chemical oxygen demand (COD) removal
Summary
Beer production is a significant contributor to the economy in many countries world-wide [1]. Typical liquid waste streams generated during the brewing process are run-off from spent grain from malt mashing and boiling, hot trub from hot wort tank boiling and fermentation slurry [3]. Breweries generally mix all liquid waste streams, including water from tank washing, and discharge them as combined brewery wastewater, generating 3–20 units of wastewater per unit of beer produced [1, 4]. The waste streams hot trub and fermentation slurry represent around 3% of the total wastewater volume, but 97% of the load of organic carbon (C) [1]. The high nutrient levels in the combined wastewater are due to extremely high nutrient concentrations in certain waste streams produced during the brewing process
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