Lignocellulose to methane using resilient ecosystem mimicry

J Edwards, GW Griffith, N McEwan & M Theodorou

Background: Effective generation of biogas by anaerobic digestion could form an integral part of global sustainable renewable energy production. However, despite significant improvements in digester design, biogas production from lignocellulose often fails because the clostridia-based microbial consortia employed are not particularly effective at degrading plant fibre.

Science : The studentship will investigate the ability of a unique and powerful microbial consortium, normally resident in the ruminant digestive tract, to generate methane from lignocellulose in a laboratory anaerobic digester. The principle micro-organisms of the consortium are the highly fibrolytic anaerobic fungi and the methane producing Archaea (methanogens). The science will be hypothesis driven, concerning itself with microbial molecular biology/biochemistry and the fundamental mechanisms of interaction in co-culture.