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Enhanced Anaerobic Mono-digestion and Co-digestion of Crop Residues by NaOH Alkali Pre-treatment: Digestion Performance and Microbial Community Dynamics

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Abstract

The main objective of the study was to determine the effect of different dosages of NaOH alkali pre-treatment on the lignocellulosic structures and the methane production of crops’ residues. In this regard, NaOH pre-treatment was implemented with different dosages on three different crops’ residues: wheat, rye, and rice straws. Substrates were soaked into NaOH solutions at different dosages with solid-to-liquid ratios of 100 and 200 gTS/L to investigate both conditions. The anaerobic digestion process was conducted using AMPTS II under mesophilic conditions. By 8% NaOH pre-treatment dosage, the reduction of hemicellulose and lignin was 81 and 62% for rice straw, 86 and 69% for wheat straw, 80 and 74% for rye straw, respectively. The concentrations of sCOD in the liquid fraction after pre-treatment were regarded as 3 times higher than in untreated samples. Pre-treatment with 8% NaOH dosage increased the methane yield of rice, wheat, and rye straws by 55, 40, and 46% respectively. Samples from digesters that produced the highest methane yield were chosen for further molecular analysis. Compared to untreated digesters, 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing revealed more diverse microbial communities in NaOH pre-treated digesters.

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Data Availability

The microbial data sets presented in this study can be found in online repositories. The raw reads were deposited in the NCBI under the BioProject accession number PRJNA970686 including SRX20359977, SRX20359978, SRX20359979, SRX20359980, SRX20359981, SRX20359982, SRX20359983, SRX20359984, SRX20359985.

Abbreviations

AD:

Anaerobic digestion

sCOD:

Soluble chemical oxygen demand

TS:

Total solids

TKN:

Total Kjeldahl nitrogen

VFA:

Volatile fatty acids

VS:

Volatile solids

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Acknowledgements

This work was funded by Boğaziçi University Research Fund Project (Project code 21YP1).

Funding

Boğaziçi Üniversitesi, 21YP1, Bahar Ince

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Environmental Sciences, Boğaziçi University, Bebek, 34342, Istanbul, Turkey

    Mohamed Mansour, Omer Uzun, H. Ibrahim Miraloglu & Bahar Ince

  2. Department of Environmental Engineering, Istanbul Technical University, Maslak, 34469, Istanbul, Turkey

    Orhan Ince

  3. Department of Marine and Freshwater Resources Management, Faculty of Aquatic Sciences, Istanbul University, Fatih, 34134, Istanbul, Turkey

    E. Gozde Ozbayram

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Contributions

MM: investigation; data curation; reactors operation; writing—original draft. OI: supervision; resources; project planning. OU: reactor control; data curation; visualization. EGO: thesis co-advisor; molecular analysis. HIM: molecular data analysis. Bİ: supervision; project administration; funding acquisition; writing—review & editing.

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Correspondence to Omer Uzun.

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Mansour, M., Ince, O., Uzun, O. et al. Enhanced Anaerobic Mono-digestion and Co-digestion of Crop Residues by NaOH Alkali Pre-treatment: Digestion Performance and Microbial Community Dynamics. Waste Biomass Valor 15, 3003–3015 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12649-023-02350-x

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