Abstract
Single-cell protein (SCP) production on food and beverage effluents is a resource-efficient water treatment approach, upgrading secondary organics and nitrogen to protein for animal feed. These feedstock and growth conditions are economically suitable for high-rate production of aerobic heterotrophic bacteria (AHB) in open systems. However, fluctuations intrinsic to this approach determine variability in nutritional quality of the SCP, limiting its applicability. While an array of environmental biotech solutions showed the potential of biostimulation (co-substrate dosing) or bioaugmentation (target organism seeding), these tools have not yet been explored for SCP production on wastewater. ProGenius aims to create a more stable and predictable microbial community leading to better nutritional quality using clever biostimulation and -augmentation strategies, based on renewable co-substrates, high-chance-to-thrive bacteria and a novel nursery concept. Biostimulant choice and dose will be tested with target bacteria from enrichment cultures and selected from literature. A sidestream nursery reactor is envisaged with optimal growth conditions to be coupled to the mainstream SCP reactor. Based on biomass yield and quality, the most prosperous configuration and parameter set will be tested with a real effluent. The advanced community engineering technology of ProGenius aims at a better SCP product that is attractive as a reliable and sustainable feed ingredient.
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