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Stimulating methane production from microalgae by alkaline pretreatment and co-digestion with sludge
Xinrui Du1, Yi Tao1, Yueling Liu2
1Shenzhen Engineering Research Laboratory for Sludge and Food Waste Treatment and Resource Recovery, Graduate School at Shenzhen, Tsinghua University, Shenzhen, People's Republic of China.
Abstract:
Methane production through anaerobic digestion (AD) is a solution of energy recovery from microalgae, but some features of microalgae limit the efficiency of AD. In this study, alkaline pretreatment and co-digestion with sludge were both applied to enhance the methane production from microalgae in batch experiments. The results showed that alkaline pretreatment increased the disintegration degree of microalgae from 20% to 34% at maximum after 12-h treatment, but the specific methane production (SMP) only increased from 279 to 298 ml/g volatile solids (VS). Co-digestion with sludge stimulated methane production, and the best synergy with an SMP of 343 ml/g VS occurred when the ratio of microalgae to sludge reached 2:1 based on their VS. The yield was 12.4% and 20.0% higher than those from mono digestion of microalgae and sludge, respectively, and the synergy was evaluated at 14.8%. Therefore, co-digestion is a better choice for improving methane production from microalgae.
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