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Updated: Jan 27, 2026

Enhancement of the Initial Growth Rate of Agricultural Plants by Using Static Magnetic Fields
Published on: July 8, 2016
Weak magnetic field significantly enhances methane production from a digester supplemented with zero valent iron
Weiwei Huang1, Fei Yang1, Wenli Huang2
1College of Environmental Science and Engineering, Institute of Tropical Agriculture and Forestry, Hainan University, Renmin Road, Haikou 570228, China.
Abstract:
Weak magnetic field (WMF) provided by a magnet was proposed to enhance CH4 production from a swine manure-fed digester supplemented with micron-sized zero valent iron (ZVI). Compared to the control without ZVI addition and WMF application (RControl), treatments that included ZVI only (RZVI) and coupled WMF with ZVI (RZVI/WMF) increased the CH4 production by 77.0% and 124.5%, respectively. As evidenced by the elevated levels of total soluble iron, WMF apparently promoted the corrosion of ZVI, providing extra H2 for hydrogenotrophic methanogenesis and creating a more reductive environment to reduce propionic-type fermentation. Microbial analysis results revealed that the relative abundance of Methanothrix (capable of accepting electrons) in RZVI/WMF were 75.1% higher than that in RZVI. Essentially, WMF application promoted the direct interspecies electron transfer-based methanogenesis by (1) providing more electrons as the direct substrate, and (2) inducing Lorentz force to facilitate the mass transfer between the released electrons and the methanogens.
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