Influence of substrate concentration on PHA production using fermented sugar cane as substrate

PHA was a kind of biodegradable polymer produced by mixed microorganisms. In recent years, 3-stage PHA synthesis process (including substrate hydrolysis, culture selection, and PHA synthesis) was commonly used for PHA production. In this kind of process, culture selection is the key stage, which directly affects the PHA production efficiency. In order to deal with sludge bulking occurred in the culture selection system, this paper analyzes the influence of substrate concentration on culture selection efficiency as well as operation stability. Under different influent substrate concentrations of 560 mg·L^-1, 1120 mg·L^-1 and 1680 mg·L^-1, we confirmed that influent substrate concentration(COD) of 1120 mg·L^-1 is the most suitable parameter for the bacteria enriching process after a long period of time under short SRT. After 94 days of cultivation, we achieved 50% of PHA content, 0.7145 COD/COD of PHA conversion rate and 0.1912 mg·(mg·h)^-1 of specific PHA storage rate at the end of batch tests with nutrient starvation. The study also confirmed that glycogen level in cells has a close relationship with its PHA synthesis ability, which shows its potential to predict the enrichment efficiency.