animal and poultry
waste management research:
a progress report

Molecular Phylogenetic Survey
of Methane-Producing Archaea in Animal-Waste Sludge
The Animal and Poultry Waste Management Center

Scientists sought with this project to learn more about microbes capable of turning waste into methane gas. If more is known about such microbes, it may be possible to enhance their methane-producing ability, which could make managing animal waste for methane recovery an attractive alternative for farmers. Scientists sampled sludge from a municipal waste-treatment plant in an effort to identify the microbes in the sludge responsible for converting waste into methane gas. Similar studies have identified a microbe called Methano sarcina as a methane producer, and it was assumed this microorganism is primarily responsible for producing methane from waste. In this case, however, scientists did not find Methano sarcina. They found instead a group of methane-producing microbes that are not related to other methane-producing microbes that have been studied. The study did not proceed beyond sampling sludge and identifying the microbes in it.

Funding: $21,000
Source: USDA Grant
Status: Completed

Investigator: Dr. James W. Brown, assistant professor, Microbiology, North Carolina State University, phone: (919) 515-8803, fax: (919) 515-7867, email: JWBROWN@MBIO.NCSU.EDU