Selective enhancement and verification of woody biomass digestibility as a denitrification carbon source

Rongting Hu; Xilai Zheng; Jia Xin; Zhaoyue Sun; Tianyuan Zheng

doi:10.1016/j.biortech.2017.07.162

Selective enhancement and verification of woody biomass digestibility as a denitrification carbon source

Bioresour Technol. 2017 Nov;244(Pt 1):313-319. doi: 10.1016/j.biortech.2017.07.162. Epub 2017 Jul 29.

Authors

Rongting Hu¹, Xilai Zheng², Jia Xin¹, Zhaoyue Sun¹, Tianyuan Zheng³

Affiliations

¹ Shandong Provincial Key Laboratory of Marine Environment and Geological Engineering, Ocean University of China, Qingdao 266100, China; Key Lab of Marine Environmental Science and Ecology, Ministry of Education, College of Environmental Science and Engineering, Ocean University of China, Qingdao 266100, China.
² Shandong Provincial Key Laboratory of Marine Environment and Geological Engineering, Ocean University of China, Qingdao 266100, China; Key Lab of Marine Environmental Science and Ecology, Ministry of Education, College of Environmental Science and Engineering, Ocean University of China, Qingdao 266100, China. Electronic address: zhxilai@ouc.edu.cn.
³ Department of Environmental Informatics, Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research-UFZ, 10 Permoserstrabe 15, 04318 Leipzig, Germany.

PMID: 28780265
DOI: 10.1016/j.biortech.2017.07.162

Abstract

The denitrification efficiency of woody biomass as carbon source is low because of its poor carbon availability. In this study, representative poplar sawdust was pretreated with lime and peracetic acid to enhance the biomass digestibility to different degrees; sawdust was then mixed with soil to investigate its denitrification efficiency. Under controllable conditions (25-95°C, 12-24h, varying dosages), sawdust digestibility (characterized by reducing sugar yield) was selectively enhanced 1.0-21.8 times over that of the raw sawdust (28.8mgeq.glucoseg^-1 dry biomass). This increase was mainly attributed to the removal of lignin from the biomass. As a carbon source, the sawdust (digestibility enhanced by 5.4 times) increased the nitrate removal rate by 4.7 times, without N₂O emission. However, the sawdust with high digestibility (12.6 or 18.0 times), despite releasing more dissolved organic carbon (DOC), did not exhibit further increase in denitrification efficiency, and emitted N₂O.

Keywords: Carbon source; Denitrification; Digestibility; Pretreatment; Woody biomass.

MeSH terms

Biomass*
Carbon
Denitrification*
Nitrates
Wood

Substances

Nitrates
Carbon