Acidic pretreatment of cellulose for bio methane production

Present work deals with the exhaustive investigations of rapid de-lignification processes from source-sorted organic fractions that are recalcitrant in nature. Organic solid wastes (OSW) belong to the organic fraction of municipal solid wastes (MSW) and they act as enormous potential substrate for alternative source of energy in the form of bio-fuels. Nevertheless, these substrates are not easily biodegradable and the degree of biodegradability is solely dependent on the composition and characteristic of organic solid wastes in municipal solid wastes. The component responsible for recalcitrance of organic solid wastes is lignin that occurs in variable amounts in different plant residues. In order to remove the recalcitrance from organic fraction municipal solid wastes and to make it more easily degradable by microbial groups, certain pretreatment techniques have been adopted and they are applied either individually or in combined way for enhancement of anaerobic digestion (AD) process. The present work studied the effect of acid treatment with acetic acid on the used substrate, evaluated its effectiveness on biogas production, and studied the concentrations of CH4 and CO2 during the fermentation period, which amounted to 90 days. All results are presented in clear curves for the purpose of facilitating the study.