The use of enzymatic pretreatment to enhance the hydrolysis phase in the anaerobic digestion reveals the accumulation of LCFA in the reactor; these can coat the methanogens and inhibit methane formation.
You can use increase concentration of acetogenic bacteria. Directly add known concentration of acetogens in your bacteria. Other option if you want to use your own culture is to SubCulture your inoculum trice or four time in the LCFA (as carbon source)detected in your hydrolysis phase and than mixed your adapted subculture(adapted in LCFA) + your original culture as your inoculum.
The right feeding strategy is key. This open access mini-review by Professor Madalena Alves and co-workers in Microbial Biotechnology (doi: 10.1111/j.1751-7915.2009.00100.x) provides a concise introduction.
Professor Alves is world-leading in this area. You may want to also consult her more recent papers for the latest insights on his tricky topic.
A few questions if I might:
1. What is the feedstock/substrate involved?
2. What is the pH at the start of the process, and when inhibition is noticeable?
3. What is the operating temperature of the fermentation?
4. Is the fermentation agitated over time?
5. Is there a film of fat/grease on the top of the fermentation?
The reason for the questions, is we have noticed that all these factors influence the fermentation process and have developed responses based on the aforementioned questions.
A practical way is to co-digest with a particulate-fibrous substrate. The most 'accepted' school of thought is that LCFA inhibition is mainly physical i.e. entangling of the microbes in the fatty milieu! A fibrous co-substrate will alleviate this by providing a 'surface' wherein the fatty mass could sit from whence the microbes could therefore degrade them with ease!
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