Evaluation of water hyacinth (Eichhornia crassipes) suitability as feedstock for biogas production

Abstract

The suitability of water hyacinth in biogas production was evaluated as a means of waste management in the interests of sustainable energy production. Batch anaerobic digestion (AD) of water hyacinth was conducted to determine the optimal pre-treatment method for maximum methane production. Physical pre-treatment methods produced a highest cumulative methane of 2.3 L during batch AD. The selected pre-treatment method, hand-cutting, was further evaluated in a semi-continuous AD using both mono- and co-digestion. The emphasis was on identifying microbial communities involved and their response to organic loading rates (OLRs). The Illumina Miseq results proved that bacterial communities were more sensitive to disturbances caused by irregular OLRs as compared to archaeal communities. In addition, the variation in substrate nutrients as a result of mono- and co-digestion of water hyacinth, contributed to variations in the bacterial diversity. For example, Bacteroides and Petrimonas diversity varied between mono- and co-digestion. Overall, the study verified that water hyacinth is a suitable feedstock for biogas production and the simple pre-treatment methods are recommended. Furthermore, OLRs influenced the microbial community structure and associated biogas yield.