Pretreatment of yard waste using advanced oxidation processes for enhanced biogas production

This work investigated the effect of Fenton, ozone and peroxone pretreatment process on yard waste for biogas production enhancement through breakdown of complex lignocellulosic structure. The pretreatment of yard waste was carried out at different experimental conditions of Fenton (ratio: 1:5, 1:10, 1:20, 1:30, 1:40 and 1: 50; doses; 200 mgL(-1): 4000 mgL(-1) to 800 mgL(-1): 16000 mgL(-1); time: 30 min-120 min), ozone (pH: 3, 5, 7 & 9; ozone dosage:0.2 g h(-1) to 2.5 g h(-1); time: 15 min-60 min), and peroxone (doses: 1 mL to 5 mL) to obtain maximum biogas production. The results indicated that cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin content of yard waste decreased during pretreatment process with increased TRS concentration and in turn improves the biogas production. Pretreatment of yard waste using peroxone process resulted in maximum enhancement of TRS concentration up to 470 mg g(-1) biomass from initial value of 55.3 mg g(-1) biomass at an optimized condition of ozone dose of 1.8 g h(-1) for 30 min with 1 mL H2O2 at pH 3. Subsequently, peroxone pretreatment showed the highest biogas production of 210 mL g(-1) VS (63% CH4) as compared to control only 80 mL g(-1) VS (35% CH4). The GC-MS and FTIR analysis of pretreated yard waste confirms the degradation of complex lignocellulosic structure.