Waste to resource: Converting paper mill wastewater to bioplastic

In this study we investigated the feasibility of producing polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA) by microbial enrichments on paper mill wastewater. The complete process includes (1) paper mill wastewater acidogenic fermentation in a simple batch process, (2) enrichment of a PHA-producing microbial community in a selector operated in sequencing batch mode with feast-famine regime, (3) Cellular PHA content maximization of the enrichment in an accumulator in fed-batch mode. The selective pressure required to establish a PHA-producing microbial enrichment, as derived from our previous research on synthetic medium, was validated using an agro-industrial waste stream in this study. The microbial enrichment obtained could accumulate maximum up to 77% PHA of cell dry weight within 5 h, which is currently the best result obtained on real agro-industrial waste streams, especially in terms of biomass specific efficiency. Biomass in this enrichment included both Plasticicumulans acidivorans, which was the main PHA producer, and a flanking population, which exhibited limited PHA-producing capacity. The fraction of P. acidivorans in the biomass was largely dependent on the fraction of volatile fatty acids in the total soluble COD in the wastewater after acidification. Based on this observation, one simple equation was proposed for predicting the PHA storage capacity of the enrichment. Moreover, some crucial bottlenecks that may impede the successful scaling-up of the process are discussed. ► We obtain one enrichment with high PHA-producing capacity on paper wastewater. ► We find acidification is the crucial step in the PHA-producing process. ► We find PHA-producers play a major role in the overall PHA content in biomass. ► We prove PHA-producing process can be integrated with wastewater treatment.