Influence of organic load on biogas production and response of microbial community in anaerobic digestion of food waste

Organic load (OL) is one important parameter influencing performance of anaerobic digestion, yet it is unclear how it affects the biogas composition and microbial community. This work investigated the influence of OL on biogas production from food waste (FW) and the response of microbial community. Results showed that the main biogas component was methane at low OLs (<10 g VS/L) while it turned into hydrogen at high OLs (>10 g VS/L). The optimum methane and hydrogen yields were 184.4 and 61.3 mL/g VS, corresponding to the OLs of 4 and 20 g VS/L, respectively. Analysis of microbial community indicated that high OLs leaded to the decrease of hydrolysis bacteria and methanogen while it helped to increase the relative abundance of hydrogen-producing bacteria. This study cast an insight that it is essential to control the OL and reinforce the hydrogenogen to obtain high output of hydrogen energy.