Shedding light on biogas: Phototrophic biofilms in anaerobic digesters hold potential for improved biogas production

Abstract

Conventional anaerobic digesters intended for the production of biogas usually operate in complete darkness. Therefore, little is known about the effect of light on their microbial communities. In the present work, 16S rRNA gene amplicon Nanopore sequencing and shotgun metagenomic sequencing were used to study the taxonomic and functional structure of the microbial community forming a biofilm on the inner wall of a laboratory-scale transparent anaerobic biodigester illuminated with natural sunlight. The biofilm was composed of microorganisms involved in the four metabolic processes needed for biogas production, and it was surprisingly rich in Rhodopseudomonas faecalis, a versatile bacterium able to carry out photoautotrophic metabolism when grown under anaerobic conditions. The results suggested that this bacterium, which is able to fix carbon dioxide, could be considered for use in transparent biogas fermenters in order to contribute to the production of optimized biogas with a higher CH4:CO2 ratio than the biogas produced in regular, opaque digesters. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study characterising the phototrophic biofilm associated with illuminated bioreactors.