Acidogenic fermentation of potato peel waste for volatile fatty acids production: Effect of initial organic load

As a renewable carbon source produced from organic wastes by acidogenic fermentation, volatile fatty acids (VFAs) are important intermediates in chemical and biological fields and beneficial to resource recovery and carbon neutrality. Maximizing VFA production by some strategies without additional chemicals is critical to increasing economic and environmental benefits. In this study, the effects of initial organic load (OL) on the performance of VFA production, variations of intermediate metabolites, and the thermogravimetric properties of potato peel waste (PPW) during batch acidogenic fermentation were studied. The results showed that the concentration of VFAs increased with the increase of initial OL, while the VFA yield decreased with the increase of initial OL. When the initial OL was in the range of 28.4 g VS/L-91.3 g VS/L, the fermentation type of PPW was butyric acid fermentation. The highest butyric acid proportion of 61.3% was achieved with the initial OL of 71.5 g VS/L. With the increase of initial OL, the proportion of acetic acid and the utilization rate of protein in the PPW decreased. VFAs were produced from proteins and carbohydrates in the early stage and mainly produced from carbohydrates in the later stage. The production efficiency of VFA was relatively high with the initial OL of 71.5 g VS/L, because more easily-biodegradable compounds were solubilized. The results showed that suitably increased initial OL could accelerate acidogenesis, reduce hydrolysis time, and increase the proportion of butyric acid. The findings in this work suggest that PPW is a promising feedstock for butyric acid biosynthesis and appropriate initial OL is beneficial to VFA production.