Waste-derived volatile fatty acids as carbon source for added-value fermentation approaches
Angelina Chalima, Laura Fernández de Castro, Lukas Burgstaller, Paula Sampaio, Ana Carolas, Sylvia Gildemyn, Filip Velghe, Bruno Sommer Ferreira, Célia Pais, Markus Neureiter, T. Dietrich, Evangelos Topakas
Abstract
The establishment of a sustainable circular bioeconomy requires the effective material recycling from biomass and biowaste beyond composting/fertilizer or anaerobic digestion/bioenergy. Recently, volatile fatty acids attracted much attention due to their potential application as carbon source for the microbial production of high added-value products. Their low-cost production from different types of wastes through dark fermentation is a key aspect, which will potentially lead to the sustainable production of fuels, materials or chemicals, while diminishing the waste volume. This article reviews the utilization of a volatile fatty acid platform for the microbial production of polyhydroxyalkanoates, single cell oil and omega-3 fatty acids, giving emphasis on the fermentation challenges for the efficient implementation of the bioprocess and how they were addressed. These challenges were addressed through a research project funded by the European Commission under the Horizon 2020 programme entitled 'VOLATILE-Biowaste derived volatile fatty acid platform for biopolymers, bioactive compounds and chemical building blocks'.