Abstract:
Coal, natural gas, and crude oil are major sources of energy. But they are nonrenewable
and continuously pollute the environment. Using renewable energy resources such as
biogas is one solution to address these issues. However, the hydrolysis of substrate during
anaerobic digestion poses a bottleneck in biogas production. To overcome this challenge,
pretreatment of lignocellulosic material before anaerobic digestion is vital. In this study
pretreatment of water hyacinth via microwave assisted alkaline solution was performed to
enhance its digestibility for biogas production. Water hyacinth biomass was characterize
before and after pretreatment via proximate and ultimate analysis. The result of this study
shows raw water hyacinth had 29.81±1.54%, 43.54±0.97%, and 16.17±2.91% of cellulose,
hemicellulose, and lignin content respectively. The effects of alkali (NaOH) concentration
(1, 2.5, and 4%), irradiation time (5 min, 10 min, and 15 min), and microwave power
(300W, 550W, 800W) on lignin removal, and cellulose content were investigated by
employing full factorial design. Results indicated that all independent variables have a
significant effect (p<0.05) on the responses variable. Numerical optimization on
pretreatment conditions indicates that the optimum value for alkaline concentration,
microwave power, and irradiation time were 4%. 604.12watt and 13.55 minute
respectively. Under this optimal condition, maximum lignin removal and cellulose content
of 74.04 % and 67.73 % respectively were obtained. From physicochemical characteristics
results, SEM revealed that microwave alkali pretreatment changes the compact and dense
structure to a more porous and disrupted structure which is suitable for hydrolytic bacteria.
Similarly, XRD analysis indicate microwave alkali treatment increase crystallinity of water
hyacinth due to the removal of amorphous lignin and hemicellulose Anaerobic digestion
experiments were performed on raw and optimally pretreated water hyacinth in a semibatch
anaerobic digestion for 43 days. The result showed that a cumulative biogas of 5.33
ml/g VS and 7.04 ml/g VS with a methane content of 48.5% and 62% respectively were
obtained from raw and pretreated water hyacinth biomass. Generally, pretreated water
hyacinth gives higher biogas with better methane content (62%) in a short period of time
than unpretreated water hyacinth. Therefore, microwave assisted alkaline pretreatment
efficiently enhance water hyacinth digestibility for biogas production.
Keywords: Anaerobic Digestion, Alkali Pretreatment, Biogas, Microwave