2026-04-28T19:49:31Zhttps://uvadoc.uva.es/oai/request

oai:uvadoc.uva.es:10324/769882025-07-30T19:01:49Zcom_10324_35294com_10324_952com_10324_894col_10324_35295

Upscaling volatile fatty acids production: Demonstrating the reliability of anaerobic fermentation of food wastes from the lab towards industrial implementation Gonçalves, Manuel João Afecto Greses, Silvia Kanine, Omar Guez, Jean Sébastien Fontanille, Pierre Vial, Christophe González Fernández, María Cristina Producción Científica In recent years, the anaerobic fermentation (AF) of food waste (FW) has gained significant attention as a sustainable solution for waste valorization. However, the challenge of scaling up biotechnological processes for industrial applications remains a key barrier to commercialization. This investigation addressed this challenge by scaling up an auto-AF process from laboratory scale (4 L) to pilot (50 L) and demonstration scale in an industrial environment (250 L), using a lipid-rich FW (46.6 %, w/w) as the feedstock and endogenous microbiota as the inoculum. The applied operating conditions promoted the hydrolysis (>35 % volatile solids (VS) removal) and acidogenesis (>58 % of soluble chemical oxygen demand (sCOD) acidified) steps. As the reactor size for technology testing was increased, efficient mixing was crucial to ensure a proper homogenization of the fermentation broth. Lactic acid bacteria (LAB) prevailed in the endogenous microbiota, contributing to the enhanced hydrolysis and acidification efficiencies determined at all the scales. The minimal performance variations determined at different reactors' scales, along with the stability of the metabolite profiles, demonstrated the robustness and reliability of AF, opening the door to continue further industrialization. 2025-07-30T09:26:34Z 2025-07-30T09:26:34Z 2025 info:eu-repo/semantics/article Science of The Total Environment, 2025, vol. 985, p. 179735 0048-9697 https://uvadoc.uva.es/handle/10324/76988 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2025.179735 179735 Science of The Total Environment 985 eng https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048969725013762 info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ © 2025 The Author(s) Atribución-NoComercial 4.0 Internacional Elsevier SI