Abstract
Efficiency of biogas production is of rising importance in times of zero emission energy strategies and fluctuating substrate availability. Particularly recalcitrant lignocellulosic substrates remain partly undigested by conventional biogas production. A more complete conversion of biogas substrates is addressed in this study by application of enzyme-containing fungal cultures on digestate. Anaerobic batch-tests were conducted under thermophilic and mesophilic conditions with undigested and pre-digested substrate. Addition of fresh or thermally inactivated fungal culture of T. reesei, M. thermophila or P. chrysosporium showed increased methane production between 7 and 50 %. Both, enzyme activity and fermentable fungal biomass appear to contribute to the increased gas yield. Two-sample t-tests of experimental replicates revealed reasonable confidence niveaus of 0.84 to >0.99 with a strong dispersion of positive effects. Thus, these results encourage the application of fungal biomass on digestate in further studies in the continuous biogas process.
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