Why Sequence a Biogas-Producing Microbial Community?
The world population is steadily growing, and so is the amount of waste produced by human activity. For example, an estimated 236 million tons of municipal solid waste are produced annually in the U.S., 50% of which is biomass. At the same time, energy sources are rapidly depleting. Converting organic waste to renewable biofuel by anaerobic digestion hence represents one appealing option to mitigate this problem. Biogas is a natural by-product of the decomposition of organic matter in an oxygen-free environment and comprises primarily methane and carbon dioxide. This naturally occurring process has been known for more than a century. More recently, it has been gaining importance as more efficient anaerobic digestion technologies have been developed to treat and recover energy (in the form of biogas) from municipal, agricultural and industrial organic wastes. The anaerobic digestion process happens slowly in nature, and there is a great need to speed it up in a human-controlled environm
