Montpellier Scientific Community

Environmental biotechnology laboratory (LBE)

Research area
Director: Jean-Philippe Steyer Jean-Philippe.Steyer		Website: http://www.montpellier.inra.fr/narbonne

Research conducted in LBE follows five cross-cutting axes that enhance the understanding of mechanisms and the control of processes. These include microbial ecology and biodiversity (EMB); biofilms in reactors (Biofilms); bioavailability, biodegradability and co-treatments (Bio2Co); engineering and anaerobic digestion (InFiMe); and technology transfer (TT). From a general perspective, the scientific project of the LBE is based on the concept of "Environmental Biorefinery - towards the analysis/understanding/optimization of the production of high-value products (CH4, H2, ethanol, acetate,...) from waste(water)s, available within a local territory and under sanitary constraints (e.g., removal of micropollutants, pharmaceuticals, pathogens,...)"
Research highlights

Among the main topics studied at LBE, one can notice fundamental as well as applied research such as (i) the generic characterization indicators of organic matter and associated co-products (ii) the production and the recovery of organic substances for further reuse in industry; (iii) the study of microbial ecosystem biodiversity found in anaerobic digestors through molecular tools (SSCP, RT-qPCR); (iv) the carbon and nutrient removal from wastewater and solid waste; (v) the monitoring of xenobiotics compounds in wastewater treatment plant (sludge) and in soils; (vi) the analysis and monitoring of biofilms processes; (vii) the design, control and diagnosis of bioprocesses for optimizing anaerobic digestion; (viii) the study of the hydrodynamics of three-phase reactors (gas, liquid, solid) (ix) the development of physical chemical pretreatments to remove or improve the biodegradability of recalcitrant organic matter and (x) the life cycle analysis and eco-design of the whole process chains for innovative waste and waster treatment.
Staff profile
Research Org.	Researchers	Professors	Research Eng.	Techn. & Admin Staff	PhD
INRA	13	1	4	19	20

Platforms and other tools
The LBE unit hosts a 1882 m2 applications hall for a total surface of laboratories and offices of 4757 m2. It manages many biological processes among which more than 50 anaerobic digesters are operated from lab to pilot scale (i.e., from 1 liter to 2 m3).
Most important international partnerships
The LBE has strong international partnerships. As an illustration, currently, 14 different nationalities are present in the LBE and over the five last years, scientific publications were co-authored with researchers from 27 countries. The INRA-LBE has been working on these topics for more than twenty five years and is internationally recognized for its relevant scientific results in these fields. Illustratively, when searching on the Web Of ScienceSM for institutions/universities working on "anaerobic digestion", the INRA-LBE is first ranked for the number of published scientific papers on the topic worldwide (see Figure 2) and among the 100 most publishing authors referenced on the WOS, 9 belongs to the INRA-LBE
Facts and figures
Publications in international ranking journals
2010: 43 2005 - 2009 : 189
Representative publications
1. Godon, J.-J., Zumstein, E., Dabert, P., Habouzit, F., Moletta, R. (1997) Molecular microbial diversity of an anaerobic digestor as determined by Small-Subunit rDNA sequence analysis. Applied and Environmental Microbiology, 63(7):2802-2813 2. Bernet, N., Delgenès, N., Akunna, J., Delgenès, J.P., Moletta, R. (2000) Combined anaerobic-aerobic SBR for the treatment of piggery wastewater. Water Research. 34(2), 611-619. 3. Bouchez, T., Patureau, D., Dabert, P., Juretschko, S., Doré, J., Delgenes, J.P., Moletta, R., Wagner, M. (2000) Ecological study of a bioaugmentation failure. Env. Microbiol., 2(2), 179-190. 4. Torrijos, M., Vuitton, V., Moletta, R. (2001) The SBR process : an efficient and economic solution for the treatment of wastewater at small cheesemaking dairies in the Jura mountains, Water Science & Technology, 43 (3):373-380. 5. Steyer J-Ph, J.C. Bouvier, T. Conte, P. Gras, J. Harmand, J-Ph. Delgenes (2002) On-line measurements of COD, TOC, VFA, total and partial alkalinity in anaerobic digestion processes using infra-red spectrometry, Water Science & Technology, 45(10):133-138. 6. Bougrier C., C. Albasi, J.-P Delgenes, H. Carrère (2006) Effect of ultrasonic, thermal and ozone pre-treatment on waste activated sludge solubilization and anaerobic digestion, Chemical Engineering and Processing, 45:711-718 7. Loisel, P., Harmand, J., Zemb, O., Latrille, E., Lobry, C., Delgenès, J. P., and Godon, J.J. (2006) Denaturing gradient electrophoresis (DGE) and single-strand conformation polymorphism (SSCP) molecular fingerprintings revisited by simulation and used as a tool to measure microbial diversity. Environmental Microbiology,8(4):720-731. 8. Steyer J-Ph., O. Bernard, D. Batstone, I. Angelidaki (2006) Lessons learnt from 15 years of ICA in anaerobic digestion processes, Water Science & Technology, 53(4-5):25-33. 9. Wery, N., Bru-Adan, V., Minervini, C., Delgenes, J.-P., Garrelly, L., and Godon, J.-J. (2008). Dynamics of Legionella spp. and bacterial populations during the proliferation of L. pneumophila in a cooling tower facility. Applied and Environmental Microbiology, 74(10):3030-3037 10. Haegeman B, Vanpeteghem D, Godon JJ and Hamelin J. (2008) DNA reassociation kinetics and diversity indices: Richness is not rich enough. Oikos, 117(2):177-181. 11. Patureau D., Delgenès N. and Delgenès JP. (2008) Impact of sewage sludge treatment processes on the removal of the endocrine disrupters nonylphenol ethoxylates. Chemosphere, 72(4): 586-591. 12. Lardon L., A. Hélias, B. Sialve, O. Bernard, J-Ph. Steyer (2009) Life-Cycle Assessment of Biodiesel Production from Microalgae. Environmental Science & Technology, 43(17):6475-6481. 13. Barret, M., Carrere, H., Latrille, E., Wisniewski, C. and Patureau, D. (2010). Micropollutant and sludge charaterization for modeling sorption equilibria. Environmental Science & Technology, 44(3):1100-1106. 14. Escudié, R., Cresson, R., Delgenès, J.P., Bernet, N. (2011) Control of start-up and operation of anaerobic biofilm processes: an overview of 15 years of research. Water Research, 45(1):1-10. 15. Mairet F., O. Bernard, M. Ras, L. Lardon, J-Ph. Steyer (2011) Modeling anaerobic digestion of microalgae using ADM1", Bioresource Technology, 102(13):6823-6829.
Total annual budget
		2008	2009	2010
Total annual budget excluding salary		982 856	1 277 741	1747 695
External contracts:
ANR		219 998	492 643	553 767
EU		15 809	94 938	322 549
Private sector		140 726	76 912	159 920
Others		606 323	613 248	711 459