How temperature shapes the biosynthesis of polyhydroxyalkanoates in mixed microbial cultures

Three sequential batch reactors were operated for the enrichment in microbial communities able to store polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs) using activated sludge as inoculum. They ran simultaneously under the same operational conditions (organic loading rate, hydraulic and solids retention time, cycle length, C/N ratio) just with the solely difference of the working temperature: psychrophilic (15 degrees C), mesophilic (30 degrees C), and thermophilic (48 degrees C). The microbial communities enriched showed different behaviors in terms of consumption and production rates. In terms of PHA accumulation, the psychrophilic community was able to accumulate an average amount of 17.7 +/- 5.7 wt% poly(3-hydroxybutyrate-co-3-hydroxyvalerate) (PHBV), the mesophilic 40.3 +/- 7.0 wt% PHBV, and the thermophilic 14.8 +/- 0.3 wt% PHBV in dry weight over total solids. The average PHBV production yields for each selected community were 0.41 +/- 0.12 CmmolPHBV/CmmolVFA at 15 degrees C, 0.64 +/- 0.05 CmmolPHBV/CmmolVFA at 30 degrees C, and 0.39 +/- 0.14 CmmolPHBV/CmmolVFA at 48 degrees C. The overall performance of the mesophilic reactor was better than the other two, and the copolymers obtained at this temperature contained a higher PHV fraction. The physico-chemical properties of the obtained biopolymers at each temperature were also measured, and major differences were found in the molecular weight, following an increasing trend with temperature.Practitioner PointsPHBV molecular weight is influenced by the operational temperature increasing with it.Increasing temperatures promote the production of HB over HV.The best accumulation performance was found at 30 degrees C for the tested operational conditions. Three reactors were operated at the same time under the same operational conditions to study the influence of the temperature on the selection of PHA-accumulating biomass and also in its accumulation capacity. The properties of the obtained biopolymer were analyzed too in order to observe whether the temperature influenced the biopolymer properties or not.image