Abstract
AbstractEsters are major flavor compounds in fruits, which are produced in high volume. The widespread availability of these compounds in nature attracts interest on their behavior in anaerobic digestion in waste and wastewater treatments. The aim of this work was to study the effects of various esters at different concentrations in anaerobic digestion followed by determination of their minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC), and to study the effect of chain length of functional group and alkyl chain of ester on methane production. Addition of methyl butanoate, ethyl butanoate, ethyl hexanoate, and hexyl acetate at concentration up to 5 g L−1 increased methane production, while their higher concentrations inhibited the digestion process. The MIC values for these esters were between 5 and 20 g L−1. Except hexyl acetate, the esters at concentration 5 g L−1 could act as sole carbon source during digestion. For ethyl esters, increasing number of carbon in functional group decreased methane production. For acetate esters, alkyl chain longer than butyl inhibited methane production. Effect of ester on methane production is concentration‐dependent.
Highlights
Exploring and exploiting renewable and green energy is necessary in today’s energy life style, because of the inevitable depletion of conventional sources of fossil energy and due to the ecological-environmental effects caused by the conventional energy consumption
In order to investigate the effect of the ester on biogas production, methyl butanoate, ethyl butanoate, ethyl hexanoate, and hexyl acetate were added at different concentrations
The results show that after 30 days, addition of ethyl butanoate, ethyl hexanoate, and hexyl acetate at concentrations up to 5 g LÀ1 resulted in increased biogas production (Table 1)
Summary
Exploring and exploiting renewable and green energy is necessary in today’s energy life style, because of the inevitable depletion of conventional sources of fossil energy and due to the ecological-environmental effects caused by the conventional energy consumption. Biogas is a clean and renewable form of energy, which has a wide range of applications, such as vehicle fuel, cooking, heating, lighting, and electricity production. Biogas is produced by anaerobic degradation of organic substrates. Anaerobic digestion is one of the oldest processes and the most efficient treatment technologies, widely used for treating industrial wastes, municipal waste, and stabilization of wastewater sludge [1]. The fermenting organisms in biogas processes are sensitive to the process conditions and the substrate used. A wide variety of chemical substances have been reported to be inhibitory to the anaerobic digestion processes, resulting in decreasing or stopping the biogas production [2]
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