Effects of ammonia fiber expansion (AFEX) treated corn stover on anaerobic microbes and corresponding digestion performance

Dynamic changes in microbial communities and digestion performance of AFEX treated corn stover co-digestion were compared to untreated corn stover co-digestion. Even though it took longer to stabilize the AFEX treated corn stover co-digestion system than it did for the untreated corn stover co-digestion, the results show that AFEX treated corn stover is a good feedstock to enhance the archaea community and improve biogas production. In the stabilized digestion system, the AFEX treated corn stover co-digestion increased abundance of archaea community (11.8%) by approximately three times compared to the untreated corn stover co-digestion (4.3%), The corresponding biogas production (213 L/kg VS loading) of the AFEX treated corn stover co-digestion was 22% higher than that (175 L/kg VS loading) of the untreated corn stover co-digestion. AFEX treatment could enable more extensive use of lignocellulosic biomass for anaerobic digestion to generate biogas and thereby provide another route for lignocellulosic biofuel production.