The role of rice husk biochar addition in anaerobic digestion for sweet sorghum under high loading condition

Highlights • Rick husk biochar addition mitigated the pH decrease during high load sorghum AD. • 20 g/L biochar addition reduced the peak total VFA by 375 mg/L at F/M ratio of 1.2. • Maximum methane production rate was increased by 25 % with 15 g/L biochar addition. • Lag phase time was decreased by 45 % with 15 g/L biochar addition.
Biochar is a carbon rich product made from the biomass pyrolysis process. Recently, biochar addition in anaerobic digestion processes has attracted attention for its possible functions to act as pH stabilizing agent, microbial carrier, and interspecies electron transfer. In this study, the effects of rice husk biochar addition in sorghum anaerobic digestion were investigated in batch tests. Under high F/M (food to microorganism) ratio conditions, obvious pH decreases and volatile fatty acids (VFA) accumulation was observed. Addition of 15 g/L biochar was found effective to increase the sorghum maximum methane production rate by 25 % and shorten the lag phase time by 44 %. Further biochar concentration increase showed little effects. Alkalinity increase brought by biochar addition contributed to the performance enhancement. Moreover, the promotive effects of biochar addition on degradation of acetic acid, propionic and butyric acid were not obvious under neutral pH conditions.