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Effect of thermal pretreatments on biogas production and methane yield from anaerobic digestion of aquatic weed biomass Hydrilla verticillata

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Abstract

The presence of lignin in the biomass makes it difficult for the microorganisms to decompose during the anaerobic digestion process, resulting in a prolonged hydrolysis phase and decreased biogas production. This study investigates the effect of four different types of thermal pretreatment techniques, i.e., hot air oven, microwave, autoclave, and hot water bath, on the hydrolysis of a lignocellulosic biomass Hydrilla verticillata to find the best pretreatment method that enhances solubilization. The degree of substrate solubilization imparted by different pretreatments was evaluated based on variations in soluble chemical oxygen demand (sCOD) and volatile fatty acid (VFA) concentrations. Variable parameters, time, and temperature were optimized for each pretreatment technique based on the degree of solubilization. Among all pretreatment techniques, the hot air oven showed the most significant improvement with a tremendous 3.38 times solubilization when operated at optimized conditions of 100 °C and 70 min. The biochemical methane potential (BMP) test revealed that pretreatment considerably decreased maturation time and increased methane yield by 34.27%. The energy balance demonstrated a net positive specific energy of 6918.39 kJ/kg, asserting the effectiveness of hot air oven pretreatment.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank the Centre for the Environment, Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati, Assam, India, for providing institutional facilities. Also, the Waste Management Research Group (WMRG) people working at the solid waste management laboratory have supported immensely for the smooth conductance of the experimental works.

Availability of data and materials

Any data sets used for the study will be made available on request.

Funding

Funding agency: Department of Science and Technology, Government of India, New Delhi.

Receiver: Prof. Ajay S Kalamdhad, Department of Civil Engineering, IIT Guwahati.

The authors acknowledge the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India, New Delhi, for the financial support (File No.- DST/TDT/WMT/2017/153 (G)).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for the Environment, Indian Institute of Technology, Guwahati, Assam, 781039, India

    Arun Sathyan, Sumona Koley, Meena Khwairakpam & Ajay S Kalamdhad

  2. School of Agro and Rural Technology, Indian Institute of Technology, Guwahati, Assam, 781039, India

    Meena Khwairakpam & Ajay S Kalamdhad

  3. Department of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Guwahati, Assam, 781039, India

    Ajay S Kalamdhad

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  1. Arun Sathyan
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  2. Sumona Koley
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Contributions

Arun Sathyan: conceptualization; data curation; investigation; methodology; resources; visualization; writing—original draft; writing—review and editing

Ajay S. Kalamdhad: conceptualization, data curation, investigation, methodology, project administration, funding acquisition, supervision, review and editing

Sumona S. Koley: data curation, investigation

Meena Khwairakpam: supervision, review and editing

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Correspondence to Arun Sathyan.

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Sathyan, A., Koley, S., Khwairakpam, M. et al. Effect of thermal pretreatments on biogas production and methane yield from anaerobic digestion of aquatic weed biomass Hydrilla verticillata. Biomass Conv. Bioref. 13, 16273–16284 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13399-023-04890-7

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