ABSTRACT
GANG LUO, DAVIDE DE FRANCISCI, PANAGIOTIS G. KOUGIAS, TREU LAURA, XINYU ZHU, AND IRINI ANGELIDAKI
4.1 BACKGROUND
Anaerobic digestion (AD) is widely used in the treatment of organic wastes to achieve reduction of the wastes with simultaneous production of biogas [1]. The production of biogas via AD is a complex process, involving many different microbial species [2]. The complex organic compounds are first hydrolyzed into oligomers and monomers, and then further converted to acetate, CO2, and H2 by various fermenting bacteria. The methanogenesis is the final step to convert acetate, CO2, and H2 to CH4 by methanogenic archaea. The syntrophic relationship between bacteria and archaea is essential for the stability of the biogas process [3].
