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Factors Influencing Biochar-Strengthened Anaerobic Digestion of Cow Manure

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Abstract

Biochar shows great potential for enhancing anaerobic digestion (AD); however, the key factors for this remain unknown. This study evaluated the effects of pyrolysis temperature, porosity, and specific surface area (SSA) on the performance enhancement of biochar. The results showed that pyrolysis temperature played an essential role in enhancing the performance of biochar. The addition of cow manure biochar pyrolyzed at 400 °C (NFC-400) and mushroom bran biochar pyrolyzed at 550 °C (JKC-550) increased methane production by 81.30% and 77.59%, respectively, compared with that by the control. Therefore, NFC-400 showed increased gas production, while JKC-550 showed a shorter fermentation period. The SSA and porosity of biochar positively correlated with the pyrolysis temperature but not with biogas production, which indicated that their influence on AD performance enhancement by biochar was not critical.

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Abbreviations

AD:

Anaerobic digestion

SSA:

Specific surface area

NF:

Alkaline cow manure

NFC:

Alkaline cow manure biochar

NFC-400:

Alkaline cow manure biochar pyrolyzed at 400 ℃

NFC-450:

Alkaline cow manure biochar pyrolyzed at 450 ℃

NFC-500:

Alkaline cow manure biochar pyrolyzed at 500 ℃

NFC-550:

Alkaline cow manure biochar pyrolyzed at 550 ℃

NFC-600:

Alkaline cow manure biochar pyrolyzed at 600 ℃

JK:

Mushroom bran

JKC:

Mushroom bran biochar

JKC-400:

Mushroom bran biochar pyrolyzed at 400 ℃

JKC-450:

Mushroom bran biochar pyrolyzed at 450 ℃

JKC-500:

Mushroom bran biochar pyrolyzed at 500 ℃

JKC-550:

Mushroom bran biochar pyrolyzed at 550 ℃

JKC-600:

Mushroom bran biochar pyrolyzed at 600 ℃

CK:

No biochar added

DIET:

Direct interspecies electron transfer

TS:

Total solid

VS:

Volatility solid

SEM:

Scanning electron microscopy

FTIR:

Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy

PCoA:

Principal coordinate analysis

BET:

Brunner-Emmett-Teller

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Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 32060245), the Open Project of Major Basic Research of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region (No. 201503001–4-3), Program for Young Talents of Science and Technology in Universities of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region(NJYT22065), and the Natural Science Foundation of Inner Mongolia (No. 2018MS03064).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Life Science and Technology, Inner Mongolia University of Science & Technology, Baotou, 014010, China

    Jiangang Pan, Jiahui Sun, Narisu Ao, Yuanyuan Xie, Aiai Zhang, Zhuoxing Chen & Lu Cai

  2. Inner Mongolia Key Laboratory for Biomass-Energy Conversion, Baotou, 014010, China

    Jiangang Pan, Jiahui Sun, Narisu Ao, Yuanyuan Xie, Aiai Zhang, Zhuoxing Chen & Lu Cai

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  1. Jiangang Pan
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Contributions

Jiangang Pan: funding acquisition, project administration, supervision, writing review and editing. Jiahui Sun: data curation, writing—original draft. Narisu Ao: conceptualization, methodology, formal analysis, investigation. Yuanyuan Xie: data curation, formal analysis. Aiai Zhang: data curation, investigation. Zhuoxing Chen: writing—review and editing. Lu Cai: supervision, writing—review.

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Pan, J., Sun, J., Ao, N. et al. Factors Influencing Biochar-Strengthened Anaerobic Digestion of Cow Manure. Bioenerg. Res. 17, 1145–1154 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12155-022-10396-3

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