Comparison of chemical and biological pretreatment of corn straw for biogas production by anaerobic digestion

Bioresource Technology (2011)-doi:10.1016/j.renene.2010.12.020 
Weizhang Zhong, Zhongzhi Zhan,, Wei Qiao, Pengcheng Fu, Man Liu

Abstract

In this work, the effects of corn straw pretreatments using Fungus Pleurotus florida and chemicals such as NaOH, ammonia, and urea on the biogasification performance by anaerobic digestion were compared. A laboratory-scale, single-phase and continuous anaerobic biogas digester was used for the evaluation. It was found that after different treatments, the compositional contents of corn straw such as lignin, cellulose, and hemicellulose would be degraded significantly, and that the physical structure of the lignocellulose matrix would also be changed. Our anaerobic digestion experiments showed that the biogas productivity was increased by all the pretreatments; and that the biogas production after NaOH treatment would be 207.07% and 16.58% higher than the raw corn straw and biologically pretreated ones, respectively.

Keywords: Biogas; Biological pretreatment; Chemical pretreatment; Corn straw; Pleurotus florida; Anaerobic digestion