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

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 H2O2, Ca(OH)2 and NaOH were selected with two levels of concentration. All thermo-chemical pre-treatments were found significant (P<0.05) to enhance lignocellulosic digestibility and methane production. The results indicated that the methane yield by H2O2-1, H2O2-2, and NaOH-2 treated corn stover were 293.52, 310.50 and 279.42ml/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. H2O2-2 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.