Roibás Rozas, AlbaVal del Río, ÁngelesHospido Quintana, AlmudenaMosquera Corral, Anuska2021-05-252023-03-132021Bioresource Technology, 334 (2021), 1249640960-8524http://hdl.handle.net/10347/26294Saline Mussels Cooking Wastewater was valorised to produce PHA with Mixed Microbial Cultures (MMC). Due to the high protein content (1.8–5.7 g CODPROT/L), PHA accumulating capacity was below 10%, so several strategies were tested. In the acidification unit, Na(HCO3) was added, increasing protein conversion into Volatile Fatty Acids (VFA) from 10.3% to 69.2% and subsequent PHA accumulation from 6.9 to 14.7%. In the enrichment unit, the incorporation of a settling stage after the feast phase provoked a shift in the proteins’ oxidation from the feast to the famine phase, where the nitrogen released in the famine is used by the MMC for growth. This increased the biomass concentration and the tolerated COD (from 1.6 to 4.2 g VSS/L and from 2.2 to 4.38 g COD/L). Finally, varying the proteins/VFA ratio for MMC acclimation to proteins allowed increasing PHA accumulation from 8.8 to 41.5%eng© 2021 Elsevier Ltd. This manuscript version is made available under the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 Internacionalhttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/BioplasticsHigh salinity wastewaterIndustrial wastewaterMixed microbial culturesProtein-rich waste streamsjournal article10.1016/j.biortech.2021.124964open access