Abstract
To enhance the activity of the thermophilic consortium, different inoculum sources were selected to study their effect on the thermophilic consortium for enhanced biogas production using water hyacinth (WH) as a feedstock. WH was inoculated with a novel thermophilic consortium enriched with a pinch of poultry droppings, horse dung, yak dung, sewage sludge, sewage effluent, and a blend of all waste samples individually, along with a control, in a batch digester. Six sets of experiments, including a control, were performed with a total solid content of 5% (w/v) inoculated with a 10% (w/v) thermophilic consortium enriched with a pinch of each inoculum source. In all the experiments, the 52°C temperature was maintained with a batch time of 26 days. The biogas yield was found to be 356.8 L/kg volatile solid (VS) (control), 469.2 L/kg VS (sewage sludge), 513.1 L/kg VS (poultry droppings), 472.4 L/kg VS (yak dung), 428.5 L/kg VS (sewage effluent), and 461.1 L/kg VS (mixture of all the samples), respectively. All the digesters containing enriched consortium showed improved biogas production with 16–30% higher yield than the control. The first-order and modified Gompertz models were fitted for the kinetic analysis. Different kinetic parameters, including the maximum biogas production rate (Rm), lag phase (λ) duration, biogas yield potential (P), and specific microbial growth rate, were estimated in each case. It was found that the biogas yield was highest in the digester containing the consortium enriched with poultry droppings.
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