Scaling-up microbial community-based polyhydroxyalkanoate production: status and challenges

Ángel Estévez-Alonso^a,b,1, Ruizhe Pei^a,b,1, Mark C.M. van Loosdrecht^a, Robbert Kleerebezem^a, Alan Werker^b

Department of Biotechnology, Delft University of Technology, Van der Maasweg 9, 2629 HZ Delft, The Netherlands.

Abstract

Conversion of organic waste and wastewater to polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs) offers a potential to recover valuable resources from organic waste. Microbial community-based PHA production systems have been successfully applied in the last decade at lab- and pilot-scales, with a total of 19 pilot installations reported in the scientific literature. In this review, research at pilot-scale on microbial community-based PHA production is categorized and subsequently analyzed with focus on feedstocks, enrichment strategies, yields of PHA on substrate, biomass PHA content and polymer characterization. From this assessment, the challenges for further scaling-up of microbial community-based PHA production are identified.

Keywords: Polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs), Biopolymer, Pilot-scale, Resource recovery, Organic waste.