Making Methanol on the Backs of Nitrifying Bacteria

摘要

Introduction Methanol is the most widely used exogenous carbon source in water resource recovery facilities (WRRFs) for conventional denitrification (Cherchi et. al., 2009). Therefore, an alternative source for methanol within a facility presents a particularly valuable opportunity to reduce the dependence on external carbon sources and enhance overall WRRF sustainability. Biogenic conversion of methane to methanol has been demonstrated at the laboratory scale using a mixed culture nitrifying community (MCNC) (Taher and Chandran, 2013) and axenic ammonia oxidizing bacteria cultures (Hyman and Wood, 1983; Wang et. al., 2010) in batch reactors. The bioconversion process takes advantage of the broad substrate range of ammonia monooxygenase (AMO) expressed by ammonia oxidizing bacteria (AOB). The research described herein aims to (i) examine the feasibility of methanol production using a MCNC in a continuous flow reactor and (ii) identify the factors affecting methanol production. Our longer-term objective is to evaluate process options and develop a mechanistic process modeling framework for industrial scale bioconversion of methane to methanol.