Biological ensilage additives as pretreatment for maize to increase the biogas production

H. Vervaeren, K. Hostyn, G. Ghekiere and Bert Willems

Renewable Energy, 2010, vol. 35, issue 9, 2089-2093

Abstract: Several biological ensilage additives were tested on maize substrate for their effect on biogas production and preservation of ODM content. In general, the addition of some biological additives and subsequent storage for 7 weeks could enhance the biogas and biomethane production per ODM when compared to the untreated sample. A common microbial inoculent containing homo-fermentative and hetero-fermentative bacteria (Bonsilage Mais®), had no beneficial effect on biogas and biomethane production compared with the non-treated sample (−12.7% and −13.1% per ODM, respectively). More complex additives with hetero- and homo-fermentative activity (Silasil Energy®) as well as enzymes (Sil-all 4×4®) or bacteria and yeasts (Microferm®) did effectively increase the biogas production per ODM (respectively with 11.8, 10.1 and 14.7%). Losses in ODM content were minor in all samples. These results might indicate that more divergent biological additives involving yeasts or enzymes during ensiling are preferred as maize preservation tools for anaerobic digestion instead of a spontaneous ensilage population or to add only homo- and hetero-fermentative strains. The nature of the additive might enhance the hydrolysis step in the anaerobic digestion process by decomposing complex carbohydrate structures.

Keywords: Ensilage additives; Biogas; Maize; Homo-fermentative; Anaerobic digestion (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (14)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960148110000595
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:35:y:2010:i:9:p:2089-2093

DOI: 10.1016/j.renene.2010.02.010

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 ().