Arnau Sala

• PhD in environmental engineering
• PostDoc Position at Centre for Research on Ecology and Forestry Applications

Every year a huge amount of organic solid waste is generated globally. This quantity is expected to keep increasing, making sustainable, safe and environmentally responsible management of solid waste vitally important. Composting offers a circular and low-impact route to managing and treating organic solid waste and produces a nutrient rich medium...

The packed-bed bioreactor is among the most promising reactor configurations for solid-state fermentation. However, the bed thickness poses several limitations involving mass and energy transfer, heat generation, and the homogeneity of the material, hampering its development at the industrial scale. Fungi are among the most promising microorganisms...

This work presents the scale-up of the conidia production of the entomopathogenic fungus Beauveria bassiana using two different wastes, coupled with concentration and virulence tests of the produced conidia against the pest Tenebrio molitor. Beauveria bassiana CECT 20374 was used in solid state fermentation (SSF) operating under batch strategy. Two...

Different reactor configurations are paired with a wide variety of agro-industrial wastes of different biodegradability to produce fungal conidia by solid-state fermentation. This work presents a preliminary comparative study between packed-bed and tray reactor configurations to produce Beauveria bassiana and Trichoderma harzianum conidia using two...

This work presents a sequential batch operational strategy (SBR) for fungal conidia production in solid-state fermentation (SSF) to improve the traditional batch operation, while also aiming to present a robust and scalable process. Trichoderma harzianum was fermented using two substrates with different biodegradability (rice husk and beer draff),...

As a waste valorisation option, agro-industrial residues (rice husk, apple pomace, whisky draff, soy fiber, rice fiber, wheat straw, beer draff, orange peel and potato peel) were tested as feasible substrates for fungal conidia production. Solid-state fermentation tests were conducted at laboratory scale (100 g) with Beauveria bassiana or Trichoder...

Solid-state fermentation using rice husk as substrate with either Beauveria bassiana or Trichoderma harzianum was conducted on batch reactors at laboratory scale to establish optimal conditions for spore production. Time course tests were performed to determine maximum spore production time, which was 7.7 days for Beauveria bassiana and 5.7 days fo...

Biological control agents are slowly and steadily replacing traditional chemical pesticides. Among them, fungal entomopathogens have assumed a key role in controlling a growing number of pests. Research on fungal entomopathogens has expanded constantly during the last decades, confirming real interest in their biocontrol potential. The production o...