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Enhancement in methane yield from anaerobic co‐digestion of walnut shells and cattle manure
Author(s) -
ŞENOL Halil
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
environmental progress and sustainable energy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.495
H-Index - 66
eISSN - 1944-7450
pISSN - 1944-7442
DOI - 10.1002/ep.13524
Subject(s) - chemistry , methane , sodium hydroxide , anaerobic digestion , potassium hydroxide , calcium hydroxide , yield (engineering) , nuclear chemistry , potassium , nitrogen , manure , inorganic chemistry , agronomy , materials science , organic chemistry , metallurgy , biology
In this study, anaerobic co‐digestion was investigated for mixtures of walnut shells (WS) and cattle manure (CM), which are lignocellulosic wastes, in various different carbon: nitrogen (C/N) ratios. The best mixing ratio for WS and CM in anaerobic digestion (AD) was determined to be 1:3, offering a methane yield of 173.2 ml/g volatile solid (VS) added . Effects of various alkaline pretreatments including calcium hydroxide (Ca(OH) 2 ), sodium hydroxide (NaOH) and potassium hydroxide (KOH) were studied in the concentration range 1–5% wt/wt for the best mixing ratio of WS and CM. The optimal KOH and NaOH concentrations were each found to be 4%, giving methane yields of 312.6 ± 5.1 and 342.5 ± 9.6 ml/g VS added , respectively, where these yields were found to increase by 80.5 and 97.2%, respectively, compared to the control reactor. By contrast, a 3% Ca(OH) 2 concentration was found to increase the methane yield by 67% compared to the untreated reactor. NaOH pretreatments resulted in relatively higher lignocellulosic solubilization and soluble chemical oxygen demand compared to KOH and Ca(OH) 2 pretreatments. This study contributes to our understanding of the alkaline pretreatment in taking advantage of CM and WS for methane productions in future applications.