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Enhancement of methane production from anaerobic digestion using different manganese species

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Abstract

The enhancement of methane (CH4) production by metal addition during anaerobic digestion (AD) of organic waste has drawn much attention in recent years. In this study, four different forms of manganese (Mn, MnO, Mn2O3, and MnO2) were applied at the beginning of AD to investigate their effects on CH4 production. Results suggested that both Mn and the three manganese oxides accelerated CH4 generation. Mn and MnO showed thehigheset carbon conversion rates (about 67%) but the Mn group generated more CH4 (330 mL g−1 VS) than MnO. Moreover, the duration of lag phases for CH4 production was in the following order: MnO < Mn < MnO2 < Mn2O3. Promotion effect of manganese on AD process was found to be the result of a composite overlay: (1) initial valence of manganese (IVM) was more likely to impact on bacteria than archaea, and high IVM could be toxic to most bacteria, (2) a high Mn2+ concentration will be unfavorable to interspecies electron transfer, and the toxicity of Mn2+ to some dominated archaea (e.g. genus Methanosarcina) could improve the competitiveness of other archaea, thereby improved the biodiversity of the archaea.

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Source data for Figs. 5a–c and 6a–c have been provided in Supplementary Tables 1 and 2. All other data supporting the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author on request.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to acknowledge the support of Shenzhen Municipal Government, and the staff and postgraduate students at Shenzhen Engineering Laboratory for Eco-efficient Recycled Materials.

Funding

This research was financially supported by the National Key R&D Program of China (Grant No. 2018YFC1902903) and Shenzhen Science and Technology Innovation Commission (Grant No. JCYJ20170818085908074).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Shenzhen Engineering Laboratory for Eco-Efficient Recycled Materials, E118, School of Environment and Energy, Peking University Shenzhen Graduate School, University Town, Xili, Nanshan District, Shenzhen, 518055, People’s Republic of China

    Qindong Chen, Ning Wang, Dandan Huang, Tugui Yuan, Huanan Wu & Qiyong Xu

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Contributions

QC: Formal analysis, Investigation, Resources, Writing original draft. NW: Data curation and Methodology. DH: Writing—review & editing. TY: Conceptualization and Validation. HW: Funding acquisition. QX: Project administration and supervision.

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Correspondence to Qiyong Xu.

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Chen, Q., Wang, N., Huang, D. et al. Enhancement of methane production from anaerobic digestion using different manganese species. Biomass Conv. Bioref. 13, 9783–9793 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13399-021-01839-6

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