Enhancement of methane production of microwaved pretreated biowaste at different enthalpies

The aim of this study was to enhance the anaerobic biodegradability and methane production of a synthetic Organic Fraction of Municipal Solid Waste (OFMSW) with high lignocellulosic content by assessing microwave at different enthalpies. The pretreatment was tested on two different amounts of substrate (0.25 and 0.50 kg) with different irradiation times (ranging between 120 and 960 s). Biochemical Methane Potential (BMP) assays were performed for 21 days. The cumulated methane production and the energy balance of the pretreatments were used to evaluate the efficiency of microwaving on the anaerobic digestion process. Results showed a BMP21 increasefor all the tested conditions with the highest increase of about 30.7% and 32.7% recorded for the substrates subjected to the most intense treatments (1632 kJ/kg).Furthermore, with the increase of the energy demand of the pretreatment a relative increase in biogas production was observed. Despite this beneficial effect, the total energy balance was always registered negative, due to laboratory scale conditions.