Effect of Biochar Addition on the Microbial Community and Methane Production in the Rapid Degradation Process of Corn Straw

Zhi Wang, Ying Guo, Weiwei Wang, Liumeng Chen, Yongming Sun, Tao Xing and Xiaoying Kong
Additional contact information
Zhi Wang: Guangzhou Institute of Energy Conversion, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou 510640, China
Ying Guo: Guangzhou Institute of Energy Conversion, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou 510640, China
Weiwei Wang: Academy of Chemistry and Materials Engineering, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230026, China
Liumeng Chen: Institute of Applied Agricultural Microorganism, Jiangxi Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Nanchang 330200, China
Yongming Sun: Guangzhou Institute of Energy Conversion, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou 510640, China
Tao Xing: Guangzhou Institute of Energy Conversion, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou 510640, China
Xiaoying Kong: Guangzhou Institute of Energy Conversion, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou 510640, China

Energies, 2021, vol. 14, issue 8, 1-13

Abstract: Anaerobic digestion with corn straw faces the problems of difficult degradation, long fermentation time and acid accumulation in the high concentration of feedstocks. In order to speed up the process of methane production, corn straw treated with sodium hydroxide was used in thermophilic (50 °C) anaerobic digestion, and the effects of biochar addition on the performance of methane production and the microbial community were analyzed. The results showed that the cumulative methane production of all treatment groups reached over 75% of the theoretical methane yield in 7 days and the addition of 4% biochar increased the cumulative methane production by 6.75% compared to the control group. The addition of biochar also decreased the number of biogas and methane production peaks from 2 to 1, and had a positive effect on shortening the digestion start-up period and reducing the fluctuation of biogas production during the digestion process. The addition of 4% biochar increased the abundance of the bacterial family Peptococcaceae throughout the digestion period, promoting the hydrolysis rate of corn straw. The dominant archaeal genus Methanosarcina was significantly more abundant at the peak stage and the end of methane production with 4% biochar added compared to the control group.

Keywords: biochar; corn straw; anaerobic digestion; methane; microbial community (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/14/8/2223/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/14/8/2223/ (text/html)

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:gam:jeners:v:14:y:2021:i:8:p:2223-:d:537360

Access Statistics for this article

Energies is currently edited by Ms. Agatha Cao

More articles in Energies from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().