Influence of different thermal pretreatments and inoculum selection on the biomethanation of sugarcane bagasse by solid-state anaerobic digestion : a kinetic analysis.

Abstract

The present study investigated the potential of UASB inoculum, by itself or mixed to nitrogenous residue (fresh bovine manure – FBM) or to adapted microorganisms (bovine rumen – BR), for biomethanation of raw and pretreated sugarcane bagasse (SB) by solid-state anaerobic digestion. The influence of autohydrolysis and organosolv pretreatment conditions on the efficiency of biomethanation process was also evaluated by means of kinetic parameters. Akaike Information Criterion was used to statistically evaluate methane production, and the multi-stage model exhibited the highest fit among the models tested. FBM addition resulted in improvements in the C/N ratio, higher yield (143.3NLCH4 kgVS −1) and higher rate constant (3.05NLCH4 kgVS −1day−1) for CH4 production from raw SB without any lag phase when compared to UASB inoculum itself which exhibited 5.6 days of lag phase. The FBM also led to a better inoculum adaptation to substrates which contained inhibitors such as xylooligomers and lignin fragments, and had lower C5 sugar content.