27 Jan Article Publication in “Sustainability

Michele Ponzelli and co-authors published an article titled “Improved Recovery of Overloaded Anaerobic Batch Reactors by Graphene Oxide” in Sustainability (impact factor of 3.9).

This study investigated the impact of adding graphene oxide (GO) to anaerobic batch reactors in order to recover from the effects of excessive loading.

Previous studies have shown that carbon-based materials such as biochar can be used to enhance the electron transferability among microbial strains, leading to shorter retention times and avoiding acidification. The study aimed to determine the ability of GO-amended anaerobic reactors to recover from the effects of excessive loading by comparing model-derived kinetic constants and stability parameters to a control and among different GO concentrations and inoculum substrate ratios (ISRs) applied.

The results showed that adding low GO amounts contributed to the acceleration of degradation kinetics obtained from the first-order model under standard operating conditions. Additionally, during and after an overloading situation, the kinetic constant k ended up at similar values as the control (no GO) or even above.

Overall, the study contributes to the area of recovering acidified anaerobic digestion (AD) processes using novel carbon-based nanomaterials as additives.

The article is published under the Open Access (OA) scheme, and it is freely consultable at the following link: https://doi.org/10.3390/su15032224