Abstract
Anaerobic digestion can potentially valorise sugarcane bagasse to biogas and fertiliser. Pretreatment is however required to overcome recalcitrance and enhance the biogas yields. Literature reporting the investigation of various biomass pretreatments often use milled biomass as substrate rather than as-received fibrous biomass. This does not establish the true influence of the pretreatment type on biogas generation. Additionally, milling energy is also ignored when calculating net energy gains from enhanced biogas yields and are thus misleading. In this work, a vortex-based hydrodynamic cavitation device was used to enhance the biomethane yields from fibrous as-received biomass for the first time. Clear justification on why milled biomass must not be used as substrates for demonstrating the effect of pretreatment on biogas production is also discussed. The net energy gain from milled hydrodynamic cavitation pre-treated bagasse can be similar to as-received bagasse only when the specific milling energy is ≤700 kWh/ton.
Original language | English |
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Article number | 127663 |
Journal | Bioresource Technology |
Volume | 361 |
Early online date | 26 Jul 2022 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 31 Oct 2022 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:This work was supported by Innovate UK, Newton Fund, BBSRC UK and Department of Biotechnology, Government of India (vWa Project, Grant BB/S011951/1). Authors would like to gratefully acknowledge Dr Ife Bolaji, School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Queens University Belfast, UK for capturing the SEM images. Authors would also like to acknowledge Dr. Chris Johnston, Dr. Gary Lyons and Mr. Michael Wills, Agri Food and Biosciences Institute, Hillsborough, Northern Ireland, UK for their support in providing the inoculum.
Keywords
- Biogas
- Fibrous biomass
- Hydrodynamic cavitation
- Net positive energy gain
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Bioengineering
- Environmental Engineering
- Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment
- Waste Management and Disposal