Enhancement of anaerobic digestion of shredded grass by co-digestion with sewage sludge and hyperthermophilic pretreatment

Anaerobic co-digestion of shredded grass with sewage sludge was investigated under various temperature conditions. The conversion of grass to methane was difficult to achieve under mesophilic conditions, while its methane yield was 0.19 NL/g VS-grass under thermophilic conditions. The mixture ratio of grass to sludge affected the methane yield, and the highest synergistic effect was obtained at a C/N ratio of around 10. In a continuous experiment, hyperthermophilic (80 °C) pretreatment promoted a methane yield of 0.34 NL/g VS-mixture, higher than that under mesophilic and thermophilic conditions (0.20 and 0.30 NL/g VS-mixture, respectively). A batch experiment with hyperthermophilic pretreatment showed that 3 days of treatment was sufficient for subsequent methane production, in which the highest dissolution of particulate COD, carbohydrate and protein was 25.6%, 33.6% and 25.0%, respectively.