Pretreatment of sunflower stalks for biogas production

Sunflower stalks were subjected to commercial-scale pretreatment by hot-water maceration and steam-explosion technology to enhance biogas production. The technology involved does not require heavy construction nor does it consume any additional energy, chemicals, or rare catalysts. Process parameters regarding the mass flow, operating temperature, retention times, hydromodule, pressure, micropore area, formation of inhibitors, and especially the methane yields were plotted in detail to allow further optimization of the design. It was found that the optimal settings should come from both the macerator and steam-explosion subunits because various synergistic effects may be achieved.