Toxicity of ionic liquid on anaerobic digestion

Abstract

Anaerobic digestion is a straightforward process to produce energy from biomass. However, the lignin composed of phenylpropanoid units induces a strong resistance for the hydrolysis step. Ionic liquids (ILs) have been applied in biomass pretreatment to dissolve the biomass components and enhance the anaerobic digestion. However, there are still some challenges such as the toxicity. ILs could inhibit the digestion process and reduce the CH4 production. In this work, a toxicity test for [BMIM]Cl (1-chlorobutane and N-methylimidazole) was conducted. Results show that IL has a strong inhibition and lowered CH4 production when its concentration was higher. At 0.2305±0.0116 g L-1 and 0.4367±0.0219 g L-1, the anaerobic digestion process was inhibited by 10 and 50%, respectively. Accordingly, a higher recovery ratio or a lower pretreatment ratio are necessary to avoid the negative impact of inhibition on BMP.