The Autonomous University of Barcelona has successfuly completed an experiment on solid state fermentation (SSF) whose results will serve as an important input and starting point for the development of the DECISIVE project.
The SSF process has been extensively studied by the GICOM research group from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona for the production of value-added products with high industrial interest. In this project, the products to be explored are biopesticides, hydrolytic enzymes (single component or an enzymatic cocktail) and biosurfactants. These bioproducts can be potentially used in the agriculture or in a near urban sector and have a wide application in different sectors of the industry, especially the agriculture and the energy sectors.
The pesticide production has been studied by incorporating to the digestate a common biopesticide producer: Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt). These trials were successful due to the bacteria was able to grow in the solid hence providing the material biopesticide properties. The latest will be confirmed in further experiments with the application of this compost-like material in a real agricultural soil.
The researchers also assessed the potential of using the digestate as a source for cellulase production in an innovative configuration that allows the continuous production of this enzyme. In this case, digestate can be considered as a suitable substrate for cellulase production despite further optimization of the process is required.
Finally, the results obtained for sophorolipids production showed a low productivity in comparison with the previous results obtained by our group using different substrates. This is likely associated to the composition of the digestate, which includes a low content of fats and sugar.
This first approach to the potential of the digestate as a source of bioproducts has been successfully carried out, achieving acceptable levels of production in all cases. The following steps for study are the optimization of all processes which may include the addition of a co-substrate to improve sophorolipids and cellulase production, the incorporation of overproducing strains to enhance cellulase production and the assessment of these processes at a larger scale, in order to validate the results obtained at lab scale.
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