Effects of enzymatic hydrolysis and ultrasounds pretreatments on corn cob and vine trimming shoots for biogas production.

Due to their lignocellulosic nature, corn cob and vine trimming shoots (VTS) could be valorized by anaerobic digestion for biogas production. To enhance the digestibility of substrates, pretreatments of lignocellulosic materials are recommended. The effect of enzymatic hydrolysis, ultrasounds pretreatments (US) and the combination of both was assayed in lignocellulosic composition, methane, and biogas yields. The pretreatments leaded to a reduction in lignin and an increase in neutral detergent soluble compounds making corn cob and VTS more amendable for biogas conversion. The US were negative for biogas production from both substrates and in particular strongly detrimental for VTS. On the opposite side, the enzymatic hydrolysis was certainly beneficial increasing 59.8% and 14.6% the methane production from VTS and corn cob, respectively. The prior application of US did not potentiate (or not sufficiently) the improvement in the methane production reflected by the enzymatic hydrolysis pretreatment of VTS and corn cob.

Rapid measurement of the yield stress of anaerobically-digested solid waste using slump tests.

The anaerobic digestion of solid waste is usually performed using dry or semi-dry technology. Incoming waste and fermenting digestate are pasty media and thus, at the industrial scale, their suitability for pumping and mixing is a prerequisite at the industrial scale. However, their rheology has been poorly characterised in the literature because there is no suitable experimental system for analysing heterogeneous media composed of coarse particles. We have developed a practical rheometrical test, a "slump test", for the analysis of actual digested solid waste. It makes it possible to estimate yield stress from the final slump height. From the slump behavior, we conclude that digestates behave as visco-elastic materials. The yield stress of different digested waste was measured between 200 and 800Pa. We show that the media containing smaller particles or with higher moisture content are characterised by smaller yield stresses. This study thus demonstrates the impact of the origin of the digestate on the yield stress.