Fungal Technology Applied to Distillery Effluent Treatment

The Northwest of Argentina has numerous sugar industries and about 99.5% of the total sugar production is concentrated in the provinces of Tucumán, Salta, and Jujuy. Integrated sugarcane factories (sugar mills coupled to a bioethanol distillery) are common in our country. The liquid fraction generated from rectification and distillation operations of bioethanol, known as vinasse, is not itself a hazardous waste, but because of its complex composition, it is considered potentially dangerous. The province of Tucumán has achieved a substantial improvement with regard to the vinasse spills onto watercourses near sugar-alcohol industries. However, millions of liters of effluent are annually accumulated in open-pit pools to the limit of their capacity, threatening the sustainability of the ecosystem. A variety of physicochemical and microbiological technologies is continually evaluated to mitigate the environmental impact of vinasse. However, microbiological conditioning of distillery effluents has been reported as effective and eco-friendly. Particularly, fungal technology has made great contributions to the treatment of vinasse since fungi possess an extraordinary ability to digest complex waste materials. Additionally, fungus-based processes offer the possibility to obtain value-added products from waste materials. The present chapter provides an overview of the current scope of fungal technology applied for treatment of vinasse. Additionally, are discussed the first advances on the potential of an autochthonous fungus strain to degrade a local sugarcane vinasse sample.Fil: del Gobbo, Luciana Melisa. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Tucumán. Planta Piloto de Procesos Industriales Microbiológicos; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de Tucumán; ArgentinaFil: Colin, Veronica Leticia. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Tucumán. Planta Piloto de Procesos Industriales Microbiológicos; Argentin

Reviewing the anaerobic digestion and co-digestion process of food waste from the perspectives on biogas production performance and environmental impacts

In this paper, factors that affect biogas production in the anaerobic digestion (AD) and anaerobic co-digestion (coAD) processes of food waste are reviewed with the aim to improve biogas production performance. These factors include the composition of substrates in food waste coAD as well as pre-treatment methods and anaerobic reactor system designs in both food waste AD and coAD. Due to the characteristics of the substrates used, the biogas production performance varies as different effects are exhibited on nutrient balance, inhibitory substance dilution, and trace metal element supplement. Various types of pre-treatment methods such as mechanical, chemical, thermal, and biological methods are discussed to improve the rate-limiting hydrolytic step in the digestion processes. The operation parameters of a reactor system are also reviewed with consideration of the characteristics of the substrates. Since the environmental awareness and concerns for waste management systems have been increasing, this paper also addresses possible environmental impacts of AD and coAD in food waste treatment and recommends feasible methods to reduce the impacts. In addition, uncertainties in the life cycle assessment (LCA) studies are also discussed. © 2016, Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg