The Impact of Bacterial Pretreatment on Corn Stover for Biogas Production

Maize is grown in large quantities for nutritional purpose; its agricultural by-product is the corn stover, which is usually unused. Because of its high abundance and high cellulose content, it is a promising substrate for biogas production. However, this cellulose-rich biomass is not used in anaerobic fermentors today, due to its insolubility. It forms a solid crust at the top of the liquid phase in the reactors, which results in the inhibition of biogas formation. Since the high solid-content inhibits the industrial-scale fermentation of corn stover, some kind of pretreatment is considered necessary. Therefore the anaerobic digestion of the corn stover could be an effective, economically profitable and environmentally friendly way of disposing agricultural wastes besides producing a valuable renewable biofuels. In our study, a cellulolytic bacterium has been used for the pretreatment of the cellulose-rich biomass and the impact on the anaerobic fermentation of the substrate was measured.