• Korean Journal of Microbiology
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• v.48 no.2
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• pp.125-133
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• 2012

Anaerobic digestion is an alternative method to digest food wastes and to produce methane that can be used as a renewable energy source. We investigated bacterial and archaeal community structures in a three-stage methane production process using food wastes with concomitant wastewater treatment. The three-stage methane process is composed of semianaerobic hydrolysis/acidogenic, anaerobic acidogenic, and strictly anaerobic methane production steps in which food wastes are converted methane and carbon dioxide. The microbial diversity was determined by the nucleotide sequences of 16S rRNA gene library and quantitative real-time PCR. The major eubacterial population of the three-stage methane process was belonging to VFA-oxidizing bacteria. The archaeal community consisted mainly of two species of hydrogenotrophic methanogen (Methanoculleus). Family Picrophilaceae (Order Thermoplasmatales) was also observed as a minor population. The predominance of hydrogenotrophic methanogen suggests that the main degradation pathway of this process is different from the classical methane production systems that have the pathway based on acetogenesis. The domination of hydrogenotrophic methanogen (Methanoculleus) may be caused by mesophilic digestion, neutral pH, high concentration of ammonia, short HRT, and interaction with VFA-oxidizing bacteria (Tepidanaerobacter etc.).

• Korean Journal of Environmental Agriculture
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.217-224
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• 2008

To obtain optimum configuration, depth and load of constructed wetlands(CWs) for treating of hydroponic waste solution(HWS) which was produced in greenhouses, the study was conducted with 4 kinds of combined systems such as Vertical flow(VF)-Horizontal flow(HF), VF-VF, HF-VF and HF-HF CWs. In four configurations of CWs, the treatment efficiency of pollutants from HWS under depth of HF and VF beds, HWS loading and HWSs were investigated. Removal rate of pollutants under different depth of VF and HF in 2-stage hybrid CWs was in the order of 50 cm < 70 cm regardless of CWs configuration. Removal rate of pollutants under HWS loading in 2-stage hybrid CWs was in the order of $150L\;m^{-2}\;day^{-1}{\fallingdotseq}300L\;m^{-2}\;day^{-1}\;>\;450L\;m^{-2}\;day^{-1}$. The optimum depth and HWS loading were 70 cm and $300L\;m^{-2}\;day^{-1}$ in four configurations of CWs, respectively. Using this optimum condition, for various HWSs (cucumber, paprika and strawberry HWS), removal rate of pollutants in HF-HF CWs was higher than that in HF-VF CWs. Optimum configuration of 2-stage hybrid CWs for treating hydroponic waste solution in greenhouses was found out to be HF-HF CWs. Therefore, under the optimum conditions, removal rate of BOD, COD, SS, T-N and T-P in HF-HF CWs were 84, 81, 84, 51 and 93%, respectively.