Title:
Aerobic Pre-treatment for Performance Enhancement of Batch Anaerobic Digestion of Napier Grass
Author(s):
Rekha, B.N., Pandit, A.B.
Document(s):
Paper
Poster
Abstract:
Pretreatment of napier grass prior to its anaerobic digestion was investigated using anaerobic sludge containing mixed microbial consortia as inoculum under aerobic conditions in batch bioreactors at 37°C. The activities of few extracellular hydrolytic enzymes was monitored during the aerobic pretreatment. The highest activity of hydrolytic enzymes was obtained at 8 h of pretreatment. Filter paper cellulase had a maximum activity of 0.84 IU/ml, while carboxymethyl cellulase, amylase and xylanase were produced to give enzyme activity upto 0.40 IU/ml. The biogas yield obtained after anaerobic digestion of the pretreated napier grass ranged between 0.1 and 0.21 m3/kg TS added. The highest and lowest values were obtained for 8 and 36 h of pretreatment, respectively. Eight hours of pretreatment of napier grass prior to anaerobic digestion demonstrated a 20% higher methane yield when compared to the napier grass without pretreatment. The consortia of microorganisms in the sludge demonstrated a useful potential in the production of hydrolases acting on major macromolecules of napier grass. A correlation was observed between high enzyme activity and high methane yield at 8 h of aerobic pretreatment suggesting that a short pretreatment period could be an alternative option for increasing solubilization and promoting methane productivity from napier grass.
Keywords:
anaerobic digestion, aerobic pre-treatment, napier grass, hydrolytic enzymes
Topic:
R&D on Biomass Conversion Technologies for Heating, Electricity and Chemicals
Subtopic:
Anaerobic digestion for biogas production
Event:
21st European Biomass Conference and Exhibition
Session:
2DV.4.23
Pages:
1256 - 1260
ISBN:
978-88-89407-53-0
Paper DOI:
10.5071/21stEUBCE2013-2DV.4.23
Price:
FREE
