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Title: Thermochemical wastewater valorization via enhanced microbial toxicity tolerance

Journal Article · · Energy & Environmental Science
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1039/c8ee00460a · OSTI ID:1542241
ORCiD logo [1]; ORCiD logo [1]; ORCiD logo [2]; ORCiD logo [2];  [1];  [1]; ORCiD logo [2];  [1];  [1]; ORCiD logo [1]; ORCiD logo [3]; ORCiD logo [4]; ORCiD logo [2]; ORCiD logo [2]; ORCiD logo [1]
  1. National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)
  2. Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
  3. Iowa State Univ., Ames, IA (United States)
  4. Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States); LanzaTech, Inc., Skokie, IL (United States)

Thermochemical (TC) biomass conversion processes such as pyrolysis and liquefaction generate considerable amounts of wastewater, which often contains highly toxic compounds that are incredibly challenging to convert via standard wastewater treatment approaches such as anaerobic digestion. These streams represent a cost for TC biorefineries, and a potential valorization opportunity, if effective conversion methods are developed. The primary challenge hindering microbial conversion of TC wastewater is toxicity. In this study, we employ a robust bacterium, Pseudomonas putida, with TC wastewater streams to demonstrate that aldehydes are the most inhibitory compounds in these streams. Proteomics, transcriptomics, and fluorescence-based immunoassays of P. putida grown in a representative wastewater stream indicate that stress results from protein damage, which we hypothesize is a primary toxicity mechanism. Constitutive overexpression of the chaperone genes, groEL, groES, and clpB, in a genome-reduced P. putida strain improves the tolerance towards multiple TC wastewater samples up to 200-fold. Moreover, the concentration ranges of TC wastewater are industrially relevant for further bioprocess development for all wastewater streams examined here, representing different TC process configurations. Furthermore, we demonstrate proof-of-concept polyhydroxyalkanoate production from the usable carbon in an exemplary TC wastewater stream. Altogether, this study demonstrates that protein quality control machinery and repair mechanisms can enable substantial gains in microbial tolerance to highly toxic substrates, including heterogeneous waste streams. When coupled to other metabolic engineering advances such as expanded substrate utilization and enhanced product accumulation, this study generally enables new strategies for biological conversion of highly-toxic, organic-rich wastewater via engineered aerobic monocultures or designer consortia.

Research Organization:
Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Biological and Environmental Research (BER)
Grant/Contract Number:
AC05-00OR22725; AC36-08GO28308; AC02-05CH11231
OSTI ID:
1542241
Alternate ID(s):
OSTI ID: 1434804
Report Number(s):
NREL/JA-2A00-71485; EESNBY
Journal Information:
Energy & Environmental Science, Vol. 11, Issue 6; ISSN 1754-5692
Publisher:
Royal Society of ChemistryCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 65 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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Cited By (4)

Promoting microbial utilization of phenolic substrates from bio-oil journal July 2019
Pseudomonas putida KT 2440 is HV 1 certified, not GRAS journal June 2019
Recent advances in lignin valorization with bacterial cultures: microorganisms, metabolic pathways, and bio-products journal February 2019
Passive membrane transport of lignin-related compounds journal October 2019

Figures / Tables (8)