Electrohydrolysis pretreatment of water hyacinth for enhanced hydrolysis

Visva Bharati Barua; V Wilson Raju; Sophia Lippold; Ajay S Kalamdhad

doi:10.1016/j.biortech.2017.04.016

Electrohydrolysis pretreatment of water hyacinth for enhanced hydrolysis

Bioresour Technol. 2017 Aug:238:733-737. doi: 10.1016/j.biortech.2017.04.016. Epub 2017 Apr 8.

Authors

Visva Bharati Barua¹, V Wilson Raju², Sophia Lippold³, Ajay S Kalamdhad²

Affiliations

¹ Centre for the Environment, Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati, Guwahati 781039, Assam, India. Electronic address: visvabharti@gmail.com.
² Department of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati, Guwahati 781039, Assam, India.
³ Department of Civil Engineering, RWTH Aachen University, Mies-Van-der-Role Str. 1, 52074 Aachen, Germany.

PMID: 28433584
DOI: 10.1016/j.biortech.2017.04.016

Abstract

This study investigates the use of electrohydrolysis pretreatment on water hyacinth to cut short the hydrolysis step and increase biogas production at the same time. Electrohydrolysis pretreatment of water hyacinth at 20V for 60min exhibited improved solubilisation (42.9%). Therefore, bio-chemical methane potential (BMP) test was carried out between water hyacinth pretreated at 20V for 60min and untreated water hyacinth. By the end of 30days, cumulative methane production of 2455±17mL CH₄/g VS for electrohydrolysis pretreated substrate and 1936±27mL CH₄/g VS for the untreated substrate was achieved. Compositional analysis and characterization study revealed the efficiency of electrohydrolysis pretreatment in melting the lignin and lowering the cellulose crystallinity of water hyacinth.

Keywords: Electrohydrolysis pretreatment; Hydrolysis; Lignocellulose; Water hyacinth.

MeSH terms

Biofuels*
Eichhornia*
Hydrolysis
Lignin
Methane

Substances

Biofuels
Lignin
Methane