Iglesias-Iglesias, RuthPortela-Grandío, AnaTreu, LauraCampanaro, StefanoKennes, ChristianVeiga, María Carmen2021-09-212021-09-212021-06-08Iglesias-Iglesias, R., Portela-Grandío, A., Treu, L., Campanaro, S., Kennes, C., Veiga, M.C., 2021. Co-digestion of cheese whey with sewage sludge for caproic acid production: Role of microbiome and polyhydroxyalkanoates potential production. Bioresour. Technol. 337, 125388. doi:10.1016/j.biortech.2021.1253880960-8524http://hdl.handle.net/2183/28489Financiado para publicación en acceso aberto: Universidade da Coruña/CISUG[Abstract] The main aim of this work was to evaluate the efficiency of producing caproic acid and other volatile fatty acids using a co-digestion between cheese whey and sewage sludge in a continuous reactor. The effect of two different feeding regimes (one and two per day) and three hydraulic retention times (HRT) (15, 10 and 6 days) on the organic acids production were studied. The optimal conditions for the process were 10 days HRT, 2 feeding cycles per day, reaching a maximum degree of acidification of 44%. Under these conditions, the most abundant organic acid was caproic acid. The analysis of the microbial community dynamics in the reactor during the HRT changes revealed a microbiome enriched in organisms involved in caproic acid production. Additionally, the production of polyhydroxyalkanoates using the organic acids stream as feeding was verified in a fed-batch experiment obtaining a copolymer formed by hydroxybutyrate, hydroxyvalerate and hydroxyhexanoate.engAtribución-NoComercial-SinDerivadas 4.0 Internacional (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/Caproic acidCheese wheySewage sludgeMicrobiomeOrganic acidsPolyhydroxyalkanoatesjournal articleopen access