Methane enhancement through oxidative cleavage and alkali solubilization pre-treatments for corn stover with anaerobic activated sludge.

Abstract In the present study, thermo-chemical pre-treatment was adopted to evaluate methane production potential from corn stover by co-digesting it with anaerobic activated sludge. Three chemicals H 2 O 2 , Ca(OH) 2 and NaOH were selected with two levels of concentration. All thermo-chemical pre-treatments were found significant ( P 2 O 2 -1, H 2 O 2 -2, and NaOH-2 treated corn stover were 293.52, 310.50 and 279.42 ml/g.VS which were 57.18%, 66.27% and 49.63% higher than the untreated corn stover respectively. In the previous studies pre-treatment time was reported in days but our method had reduced it to about one hour. H 2 O 2 -2 and NaOH-2 treatments remained prominent to increase lignocellulosic degradation vigorously up to 45% and 42% respectively. Process biochemistry during the anaerobic digestion process was taken into consideration to optimize the most feasible thermo-chemical pre-treatment for corn stover.