Food waste composting based on patented compost bins: Carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide emissions and the denitrifying community analysis.

Mature compost and rice bran were used as bulking agents to perform Food Waste Rapid Composting (FWRC) in a patented composting bin. The characteristics of CO2 and N2O emission and the denitrifying community were investigated. The release of CO2 and N2O concentrated in the early composting stage and reduced greatly after 28 h, and the N2O emission peak of the treatment with mature compost was 8.5 times higher than that of rice bran. The high N2O generation resulted from massive denitrifying bacteria and NOx--N in the composting material. The relative abundances of denitrifiers, correspondingly genes of narG and nirK were much higher in the treatment with mature compost, which contributed to the N2O emission. Moreover, the correlation matrices revealed that N2O fluxes correlated well with moisture, pH, temperature, and the abundances of nirK and nosZ genes during FWRC.

Evolution of physicochemical properties and bacterial community in aerobic composting of swine manure based on a patent compost tray.

The objective of this study was to explore the changes in physicochemical properties and bacterial community during swine manure composting with a new compost tray (CT). The results showed that the organic matter (OM), moisture content (MC), and C/N decreased. The total Kjeldahl nitrogen (TKN), P2O5, K2O and humic acids (HAs) contents of the compost increased. The properties of the final compost product comply with the requirements of regulation except for the moisture according to NY/T 525-2012. Firmicutes, Actinobacteria, Proteobacteria and Bacteroidetes were the major phyla during the composting. Genus Terrisporobacter played a key role in degrading organic (OM). The content of K2O was main factors driving the succession of bacterial communities. These findings shed some novel lights into the dynamic changes of physicochemical propertied and their impact on bacterial community in a composting process.

Desulfobacterales stimulates nitrate reduction in the mangrove ecosystem of a subtropical gulf.

The amount of nitrogen compounds discharged into the natural environment has increased drastically due to frequent human activities and led to worsening pollution. The mangrove ecosystem can remove nitrogen pollution, in this regard, few studies had focused on the relationship among nitrogen cycling genes, environmental factors, and taxonomic composition. In this study, shotgun metagenomic sequencing and quantitative polymerase chain reaction were used to understand the nitrogen cycle in the subtropical mangrove ecosystem in the Beibu Gulf of China. Eight nitrogen cycling pathways were annotated. Nitrogen metabolism activities were significantly higher in the wet season than those in the dry season. The most abundant genes were those related to the synthesis and degradation of organic nitrogen, followed by the genes involved in nitrate reduction (denitrification, dissimilation/assimilation nitrate reduction). Furthermore, dissimilation nitrate reduction was the main nitrate reduction pathway. Desulfobacterales plays an important role in nitrogen cycling and contributes 12% of the genes of nitrogen pathways on average; as such, a strong coupling relationship exists among nitrogen cycling, sulfur cycling, and carbon cycling in the mangrove ecosystem. Nitrogen pollution in the mangrove wetland can be efficiently alleviated by nitrate reduction of Desulfobacterales. Nevertheless, only 50% of genes can be matched among the known species, suggesting that many unknown microorganisms in the mangrove ecosystem can perform nitrogen cycling. Total phosphorus, available iron, and total organic carbon are the key environmental factors that influence the distribution of nitrogen cycling genes, related pathways, and the taxonomic composition. Our study clearly illustrates how the mangrove ecosystem mitigates nitrogen pollution through Desulfobacterales. This finding could provide a research reference for the whole nitrogen cycling in the mangrove ecosystem.

Butanol production employing fed-batch fermentation by Clostridium acetobutylicum GX01 using alkali-pretreated sugarcane bagasse hydrolysed by enzymes from Thermoascus aurantiacus QS 7-2-4.

Sugarcane bagasse (SB) is a potential feedstock for butanol production. However, biological production of butanol from SB is less economically viable. In this study, evaluation of eight pretreatments on SB showed that alkali pretreatment efficiently removed lignin from SB while retaining the intact native structure of the released microfibrils. In total, 99% of cellulose and 100% of hemicellulose in alkali-pretreated SB were hydrolysed by enzymes from Thermoascus aurantiacus. The hydrolysate was used to produce butanol in a fed-batch fermentation by Clostridium acetobutylicum. At 60h, 14.17 and 21.11gL(-1) of butanol and acetone-butanol-ethanol (ABE) were produced from 68.89gL(-1) of total sugars, respectively, yielding 0.22 and 0.33gg(-1) of sugars. The maximum yield of butanol and ABE reached 15.4g and 22.9g per 100g raw SB, respectively. This established process may have potential application for butanol production from SB.

Enhanced butanol production from cassava with Clostridium acetobutylicum by genome shuffling.

To obtain strains exhibiting high levels of solvent tolerance and butanol production, wild type strains of Clostridium acetobutylicum butanol-producing strain GX01 and Lactobacillus mucosae butanol-tolerant strain M26 were subjected to mutagenesis combining N-methyl-N-nitro-N-nitrosoguanidine induction with genome shuffling. After four successive rounds of genome shuffling, the C. acetobutylicum shuffled strain GS4-3 showing greater levels of fermentation performances (such as secreting a higher level of amylase, improving the thermal stability, and possessing greater environmental robustness) compared to the wild type strains was isolated. As a result, after optimization of culture conditions, mutant GS4-3 produced 32.6 g/L of total solvent, 20.1 g/L of butanol production, and 0.35 g/L/h of butanol productivity, which were, respectively, increased by 23.5, 23.3, and 40.0 % than the wild-type strain GX01, in a 10 L bioreactor. The enhanced production of butanol and tolerance of solvent of mutant associated with GS4-3 make it promising for acetone/butanol/ethanol fermentation from cassava (Manihot esculenta).