Lin, Richen; Cheng, Jun; Zhang, Jiabei; Zhou, Junhu; Cen, Kefa; Murphy, Jerry D.

2017

September

Bioresource Technology

Boosting biomethane yield and production rate with graphene: The potential of direct interspecies electron transfer in anaerobic digestion

Published

Altmetric: 18 ()

Graphene Activated charcoal Ethanol Direct interspecies electron transfer Anaerobic digestion

239

345

352

Interspecies electron transfer between bacteria and archaea plays a vital role in enhancing energy efficiency of anaerobic digestion (AD). Conductive carbon materials (i.e. graphene nanomaterial and activated charcoal) were assessed to enhance AD of ethanol (a key intermediate product after acidogenesis of algae). The addition of graphene (1.0 g/L) resulted in the highest biomethane yield (695.0 ± 9.1 mL/g) and production rate (95.7 ± 7.6 mL/g/d), corresponding to an enhancement of 25.0% in biomethane yield and 19.5% in production rate. The ethanol degradation constant was accordingly improved by 29.1% in the presence of graphene. Microbial analyses revealed that electrogenic bacteria of Geobacter and Pseudomonas along with archaea Methanobacterium and Methanospirillum might participate in direct interspecies electron transfer (DIET). Theoretical calculations provided evidence that graphene-based DIET can sustained a much higher electron transfer flux than conventional hydrogen transfer.

0960-8524

10.1016/j.biortech.2017.05.017