Upgrading grass biomass during ensiling with contrasting fibrolytic enzyme additives for enhanced methane production

Pearl Nolan, Evelyn M. Doyle, Jim Grant and Pádraig O'Kiely

Renewable Energy, 2018, vol. 115, issue C, 462-473

Abstract: The aims were to quantify the effects of applying fibrolytic enzymes at ensiling on conservation characteristics and specific methane (CH4) yields (SMY) per unit mass, and per unit land area. At two stages of primary growth, four replicate plots of two species (perennial ryegrass and timothy) were subjected to nine treatments, an untreated control and four fibrolytic enzymes (ENZ 1–4) applied at two enzyme dosage rates (low and high) prior to ensiling. Silage SMYs were subsequently determined in an in vitro batch anaerobic digestion test. Generally, applying fibrolytic enzymes at ensiling reduced total fibre compared to control silages, which consequently enhanced mass-SMY and area-SMY. However, the impact on fibre, mass-SMY and area-SMY differed depending on both grass species and growth stage at harvest, with no single enzyme being consistently superior. Thus the potential of enhanced methane output with added enzymes at ensiling is both fibrolytic enzyme and grass substrate specific.

Keywords: Yield; Grass silage; Fibrolytic enzyme; Upgrading; Anaerobic digestion (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960148117306523
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:renene:v:115:y:2018:i:c:p:462-473

DOI: 10.1016/j.renene.2017.07.039

Access Statistics for this article

Renewable Energy is currently edited by Soteris A. Kalogirou and Paul Christodoulides

More articles in Renewable Energy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().