Anaerobic Digestion

Dear Colleagues,

Anaerobic digestion (AD) occurs when complex microbial communities catabolise organic polymers into their constituent components in the absence of oxygen. Some of the products of this process are utilised by methanogenic archaea, such as terminal electron acceptors, resulting in the production of methane. The final products of AD are biogas—a mixture mainly consisting of methane and carbon dioxide—and a nitrogen-rich digestate that can be used as fertilizer. AD is commonly used at an industrial scale for recovering resources from the organic fraction of municipal solid waste, agricultural residues, food waste, and sewage sludge. Molecular tools are increasingly being used to characterise the microorganisms found in anaerobic digesters, and to understand the variation and temporal dynamics of AD communities. This Special Issue of Microorganisms looks at how and why the AD microbial community changes in response to operating condition changes, and how interventions may result in better AD outcomes with respect to solids destruction, gas production, hydraulic retention time, and other critical parameters.

Dr. James Chong
Guest Editor

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