Currently biogas production from manure faces two issues: 1) current days reactors cannot utilize the lignocellulotic fraction in manure (thus lacking 30% of its potential. 2) Manure contains high loads of antimicrobials (antibiotics and bactericides) from the animal production that are brought with the raw or digested manure to agricultural fields. BioMan is suggesting a new biofilm based redox switching approach utilizing fungi in one step to break up lignocellulotic compounds in a pure biotech process. It is expected that this switching biofilm process will also enable the break-down of 99% of the antimicrobials. In BioMan the in depth metabolisation (mineralization) of 4 selected antimicrobials will be explored for the first time in the different parts of the suggested innovative reactor. Metabolites and metabolic pathways will be explored to gain deeper understanding on the aerobic and methanogenic parts of the reactor.

BioMan is a collaboration between Kai Bester and Henrik B. Møller

BioMan is in the starting phase and is looking for interested PhD students.

Reference: Removal of antibiotics during the anaerobic digestion of pig manure.