2^nd World Bioenergy Congress and Expo

Leather fleshing waste is one of the most complex and putrescible organic industrial waste which can be used as renewable energy source. Due to some practical difficulties, like presence of fat particles, hinders the biological treatment process of leather fleshing disposal. This study focuses on the effective usage of the lipase enzyme in the disposal of the leather fleshing waste using anaerobic digestion process. Lipases are hydrolytic enzymes which have many industrial and environmental applications. In this present study lipases were isolated from fungus Aspergillus brasiliensis. Lipase was produced from the fat recovered from leather fleshing waste. When the lipase used for biogas enhancement, the biogas yield was increased to 1.5 fold over control (without the addition of lipase) and gave qualitatively better methane gas. The microbial ecology, which is the most vital parameter in the anaerobic digestion, was analyzed using molecular techniques DGGE and 16 sRNA techniques. Phylogeny indicates that the “predominant” species were related to “Methanococus” which are major methane producers and their presence were further confirmed with the SEM imaging of the batch reactor with the presence of coccus species. There was a considerable higher methanogenic archeal bands when compared to the anaerobic digestion without lipase. Hence, this study proves that the addition of lipase in AD improves the microbial adaptability towards anaerobic digestion of fat rich wastes becomes an efficient biological waste management solution for leather solid wastes.