Recycling durian shell and jackfruit peel via anaerobic digestion

With growing popularity of durian and jackfruit, environment threats following improper management of durian shell (DS) and jackfruit peel (JP) are increasingly serious. Anaerobic digestion is a potential solution but concern on its unsatisfied efficiency from lignocellulosic recalcitrance remains. This work applied four representative pretreatments on DS and JP to determine the effects on methane generation, energy potential, and environmental benefits. The suitable pretreatments for DS and JP were 3% KOH and 5% AHP, causing 103.8% and 69.8% increase in methane yield and biodegradability than untreated, respectively. Moreover, 3% KOH-treated DS and 5% AHP-treated JP could potentially produce total energy of 2.0 x 10(9) MJ/year, reduce coal consumption by 6.8 x 10(4) ton/year, and cut emission by 2.2 x 10(10) particulate/year, which might alleviate the serious energy crisis and environmental issues from the overuse of fossil fuel. This study provides important insights into efficient use of DS and JP, and a reference for other fruit wastes.

Automated summary

The study found that using 3% KOH and 5% AHP for pretreatment of durian shell and jackfruit peel can significantly increase methane yield and biodegradability, potentially alleviating energy crisis and environmental issues.