Unveiling microbial structures during raw microalgae digestion and co-digestion with primary sludge to produce biogas using semi-continuous AnMBR systems

[EN] Methane production from microalgae can be enhanced through anaerobic co-digestion with carbon-rich substrates and thus mitigate the inhibition risk associated with its low C:N ratio. Acclimated microbial communities for microalgae disruption can be used as a source of natural enzymes in bioenergy production. However, co-substrates with a certain microbial diversity such as primary sludge might shift the microbial structure. Substrates were generated in a Water Resource Recovery Facility (WRRF) and combined as follows: Scenedesmus or Chlorella digestion and microalgae co-digestion with primary sludge. The study was performed using two lab-scale Anaerobic Membrane Bioreactors (AnMBR). During three years, different feedstocks scenarios for methane production were evaluated with a special focus on the microbial diversity of the AnMBR. 57% of the population was shared between the different feedstock scenarios, revealing the importance of Anaerolineaceae members besides Smithella and Methanosaeta genera. The addition of primary sludge enhanced the microbial diversity of the system during both Chlorella and Scenedesmus co-digestion and promoted different microbial structures. Aceticlastic methanogen Methanosaeta was dominant in all the feedstock scenarios. A more remarkable role of syntrophic fatty acid degraders (Smithella, Syntrophobacteraceae) was observed during co-digestion when only microalgae were digested. However, no significant changes were observed in the microbial composition during anaerobic microalgae digestion when feeding only Chlorella or Scenedesmus. This is the first work revealing the composition of complex communities for semi-continuous bioenergy production from WRRF streams. The stability and maintenance of a microbial core over-time in semi-continuous AnMBRs is here shown supporting their future application in full-scale systems for raw microalgae digestion or codigestion.The Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO) and the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) are gratefully acknowledged for their support to this research work through CTM2011-28595-C02-02 and CTM2014-54980-C2-1-R projects. The authors are thankful to Ph.D. Silvia Greses and Ph.D. candidate Rebecca Serna-Garcia (Universitat de Valencia, Spain) for allowing the collection of digestate samples from their bioreactors and providing a brief data characterization of their performance. As well, authors thank the support of Maria Paches (IIAMA, Valencia, Spain) during phytoplankton monitoring in the photobioreactor plant. Finally, the sequencing service from FISABIO (Valencia, Spain) is also gratefully acknowledged for their technical support during the design stage of this work.Zamorano-López, N.; Borrás, L.; Seco, A.; Aguado García, D. (2020). Unveiling microbial structures during raw microalgae digestion and co-digestion with primary sludge to produce biogas using semi-continuous AnMBR systems. The Science of The Total Environment. 699:1-12. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2019.134365112699APHA, APHA/AWWA/WEF, 2012. In: Standard Methods for the Examination of Water and Wastewater. Stand. Methods, pp. 541 doi.org/ISBN 9780875532356.Astals, S., Musenze, R. S., Bai, X., Tannock, S., Tait, S., Pratt, S., & Jensen, P. D. (2015). Anaerobic co-digestion of pig manure and algae: Impact of intracellular algal products recovery on co-digestion performance. Bioresource Technology, 181, 97-104. doi:10.1016/j.biortech.2015.01.039Baudelet, P.-H., Ricochon, G., Linder, M., & Muniglia, L. (2017). 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