Ricerc@Sapienza

Although the organic fraction of municipal solid waste (OFMSW) and sewage sludge (SS) originate from the same urban area and contain similar organic matter, they are collected separately and handled with different technologies. In this work, a combined treatment of OFMSW-SS mixture was investigated at pilot scale, by using a three-step mixed microbial culture (MMC) process in order to produce polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA) as final high value biobased product.

In recent years, the attention to organic wastes as a new feedstock for the production of PHA is increased based on the idea that this is the only way to reduce their high cost and to increase their sustainability. For this reason, a pilot platform has been designed to produce PHA from the source-sorted organic fraction of municipal solid waste (OFMSW). The cost-effective system consists in the three-steps anaerobic-aerobic process: the fermentation step was performed in a 200 L CSTR (OLR 20.0 kgVS/m3.d, HRT 3.3 d) in thermophilic conditions (55°C).

The problem of waste disposal has recently focused on practices for waste recycling and bio-resources valorization. Organic waste produced in urban context together with biological sludge produced in wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs)can be used as renewable feedstock for the production of building blocks of different products, from biopolymers to methyl esters.