On-site nitrogen and carbon upcycling from anaerobic digestion through microbial protein production: a case study

Anaerobic digestion plays a central role in the context of resource recovery from wastewater. Due to the availability of carbon and nutrients (N, P) in the form of biogas and digestate, innovative biorefinery approaches can be implemented to upgrade these fundamental building blocks directly into new high-value bioproducts such as microbial protein. Both methane- and hydrogen-oxidizing bacteria offer a potential for clean-tech on-site C and N upcycling through microbial protein production. The present study compares these two platforms by evaluating their potential in the framework of an ideal future wastewater biorefinery