Venkiteshwaran, Kaushik

Dr. Kaushik Venkiteshwaran is a post-doctoral researcher at Marquette University. He specializes in Environmental Biotechnology and his work focuses on modelling microbial communities for optimizing resource recovery in biological wastewater treatment systems. Dr. Venkiteshwaran earned a Masters in Civil Engineering from Clarkson University and a doctorate in Civil and Environmental Engineering from Marquette University.

Titles from this speaker

Description: Predicting Digester Methane Production Using Microbial Community Information: Can...

Predicting Digester Methane Production Using Microbial Community Information: Can Your Biomass DNA Data Really Be Used to Improve Operations?

Abstract

In this study, a deep neural network (DNN) modelling method was used to develop a quantitative structure-activity relationship between microbial community composition and anaerobic digestion (AD) methane production rate. Lab-scale digesters (149 digesters) were seeded with biomass from different full-scale anaerobic digesters and then operated under identical conditions. Although the digesters were operated identically, their methane production varied significantly, ranging from 0.09 to 0.98 L-CH4/LR-day (LR = Liter of reactor volume). The microbial relative abundance values from 149 digesters were used as descriptors in a quantitative DNN model to predict the methane production rates. The DNN model explained over 74% of the variance in the methane production rates of 149 anaerobic digesters, which is higher than the multiple linear regression model used in a previous study. This study provides a basis for relating complex microbial community with the performance of engineered biological systems.

SpeakerVenkiteshwaran, Kaushik

Presentation time

11:00:00

11:30:00

Session time

11:00:00

12:00:00

SessionPredicting, Increasing and Conditioning Biogas

Session number8B

TopicBiosolids and Residuals, Facility Operations and Maintenance

Author(s)

K. VenkiteshwaranK. VenkiteshwaranN. LangD. YeD. Zitomer