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The Contribution Of Syntrophic Fatty-Acid Degrading Microbial Communities To Anaerobic Digester Function And Stability, Prince Peter Mathai
The Contribution Of Syntrophic Fatty-Acid Degrading Microbial Communities To Anaerobic Digester Function And Stability, Prince Peter Mathai
Dissertations (1934 -)
Anaerobic digestion (AD), the conversion of complex organic matter to methane, occurs through a series of reactions mediated by different guilds of microorganisms. AD process imbalances, such as organic overload or high organic loading rates (OLR), can result in the accumulation of volatile fatty acids (VFA) e.g., propionate, which must be degraded to maintain stable reactor function. VFAs are metabolized by syntrophic fatty-acid degrading bacteria (SFAB) in association with methanogenic archaea (collectively, syntrophic microbial communities, SMC). Despite their indispensable role in AD, little is known about the ecology of SFAB, especially under stressed conditions. To facilitate ecological studies, four quantitative …