Eco-friendly vermitechnological winery waste management: a pilot-scale study

Application of white wine lees for promoting lactic acid bacteria growth and malolactic fermentation in wine

In the context of ecological transition, the use of wine by-products for industrial applications is a major challenge. Wine lees, the second wine by-product in terms of quantity, represent a source of nutrients that can be used for stimulating the growth of microorganisms. Here, white wine lees were used as a stimulating agent for the growth of wine lactic acid bacteria (LAB) and to promote wine malolactic fermentation (MLF) driven out by Oenococcus oeni. By adding freeze-dried wine lees to wines under different conditions - including different wine lees at different concentrations and different O. oeni strains at various initial populations - it was observed that wine lees can enhance the growth of LAB and reduce the duration of MLF. The chemical composition of wines was also evaluated, proving that wine lees do not compromise the quality of the wines. In addition, wine lees did not seem to promote the growth of spoilage microorganisms like as Brettanomyces bruxellensis. Altogether, this work reports the possibility of recovering the lees of white wine to obtain a product favoring the MLF of red wines. More general, we propose a recycling strategy of wine by-products to obtain new products for winemaking.

New developments on vermifiltration as a bio-ecological wastewater treatment technology: Mechanism, application, performance, modelling, optimization, and sustainability

The review discusses the advancements in vermifiltration research over the last decade, focusing on pollution removal mechanisms, system performance, the fate of filter components, and by-products. Vermifiltration has demonstrated remarkable capabilities, particularly in treating highly contaminated wastewater with Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD) levels exceeding 92,000 mg/L and Biochemical Oxygen Demand (BOD5) levels over 25,000 mg/L, achieving removal rates of approximately 89% and 91%, respectively. Importantly, vermifiltration maintains its effectiveness even with fluctuating organic loads at the inlet, thanks to optimization of parameters like Hydraulic Loading Rate, biodegradable organic strength, earthworm density and active layer depth. Clogging issues can be minimized through parameters optimization. The review also highlights vermifiltrations' potential in co-treating the organic fraction of municipal solid waste while significantly reducing heavy metal concentrations, including Cd, Ni, Pb, Cu, Cr, and Zn, during the treatment process. Earthworms play a pivotal role in the removal of various components, with impressive removal percentages, such as 75% for Total Organic Carbon (TOC), 86% for Total COD, 87% for BOD5, 59% for ammonia nitrogen, and 99.9% for coliforms. Furthermore, vermifiltration-treated effluents can be readily utilized in agriculture, with the added benefit of producing vermicompost, a nutrient-rich biofertilizer. The technology contributes to environmental sustainability, as it helps reduce greenhouse gas emissions (GHG), thanks to earthworm activity creating an aerobic environment, minimizing GHG production compared to other wastewater treatment methods. In terms of pollutant degradation modeling, the Stover-Kincannon model outperforms the first-order and Grau second-order models, with higher regression coefficients (R2 = 0.9961 for COD and R2 = 0.9353 for TN). Overall, vermifiltration emerges as an effective and sustainable wastewater treatment solution, capable of handling challenging wastewater sources, while also producing valuable by-products and minimizing environmental impacts.

Municipal solid waste management: Dynamics, risk assessment, ecological influence, advancements, constraints and perspectives

Global energy consumption has been increasing in tandem with economic growth, putting pressure on the world's supply of renewable energy sources. Municipal Solid waste (MSW) has been reported contributing immensely to the improvement of a secure environment and renewable sources. Energy scarcity and conventional MSW disposal methods in developing countries lead towards many environmental and economic issues. Scientists have been able to experiment with various waste-to-energy conversion technologies in light of this situation. This communication highlights and reviews WtE technologies to convert MSW and other feedstocks into electricity, hydrogen gas, bioethanol along with other value added products like fertilizer(s), platform chemicals as an environmentally friendly products. This review comprehensively summarized the dynamics, risk assessment, ecological influence, advancements, constraints and perspectives altogether in field of municipal solid waste management and treatment. Stare-of-the-art information on ecological influence and risk assessment in handling and transportation of municipal solid waste has been provided. Advanced trends involved in remediation of emerging pollutants and resources obtained from municipal solid wastes have been uncovered. Lastly, this paper comprises constraints and perspectives for uncovering MSW based circular bioeconomy aspects.

Vermiremediation of Biomixtures from Biobed Systems Contaminated with Pesticides

Biobeds bioremediation systems are effectively used for minimizing pesticide point-source contamination. For keeping the biobed effectiveness, its biomixture needs to be replaced every so often. The exhausted biomixtures can contain pesticide residues and so they require a special treatment before being discharged into the environment. In this study, we explore the potential of vermiremediation for cleaning up biobed biomixtures contaminated with pesticides. Two biomixtures composed of soil:peat:straw (P) and soil:vermicompost of wet olive cake: olive tree pruning (O), contaminated with high loads of four pesticides, were used. Vermicomposting was carried out by Eisenia fetida earthworms for 12 weeks. Results showed that 50% and 70% of the earthworms colonized the contaminated P and O biomixtures, respectively, but the number of alive earthworms decreased with time just as their weight. The colonization of biomixtures did not significantly affect the dissipation of imidacloprid and tebuconazole, but increased 1.4 fold the dissipation of oxyfluorfen in both biomixtures and that of diuron in biomixture P. Although the presence of high loads of pesticides and the composition of the biomixtures limited the vermiremediation, satisfactory results were obtained for diuron and oxyfluorfen. Complementing vermiremediation with other remediation practices could improve the efficiency of this technology.