Grass as a high potential by-product: Buffalo grass to biogas and the increase of system performance and stability

Abstract

Buffalo grass and alkaline-pretreated buffalo grass samples were co-digested with cow manure separately to generate biogas in anaerobic reactors. The study considered a solid content of 20% (10% buffalo grass and 10% cow manure). The methane (CH4) content and CH4 yield of the distinct experiments were compared. For the untreated buffalo grass, the weighed buffalo grass was mixed with cow manure and water. For the alkaline-pretreated buffalo grass, the weighed buffalo grass was soaked in 1% sodium hydroxide for 1 day prior to being mixed with cow manure and water. The untreated and pretreated buffalo grass-manure were fed semi-continuously at the rate of 125 mL/day for five days feeding in a 5 L reactor, with 40 days hydraulic retention time. The experiments were conducted for approximately 100 days. Results were reported when the systems were in steady-state conditions. The chemical oxygen demand (COD) conversion efficiency of co-digestion of the untreated and pretreated buffalo grass-manure were 46.21 and 62.76%, respectively, and for the total volatile solids (TVS) were 68.50 and 71.80%, respectively. The CH4 contents generated from co-digestion of the untreated and pretreated buffalo grass-manure were 48.32% and 50.36%, respectively. The CH4 yields generated from co-digestion of the untreated and pretreated buffalo grass-manure were 328 and 385 L/kgTVS conversion, respectively. It was observed from the experiments that pretreatment of the buffalo grass prior to co-digestion provided system stability during biogas production.