Influence of vapothermal and hydrothermal pre-treatment on anaerobic degradability of lignocellulosic biomass

This study compares the biogas potential of solid common reed residues after undergoing vapothermal and hydrothermal pre-treatment, accompanied by a compositional and structural biomass characterization. In a pre-test series, a design of experiments approach was used to determine the influence of the initial biomass water content during vapothermal pre-treatment on the biogas yield. In the main test series, common reed was pre-treated hydrothermally (i.e., in liquid water) and vapothermally (i.e., in saturated steam) while varying temperature and residence time. The initial biomass water content significantly impacted the biogas potential, with an optimum at a value of 32 to 46 wt-%_FM. In the main test series, unlike the residence time, temperature significantly impacted the subsequent anaerobic digestion. Vapothermal pre-treatment had a narrow temperature optimum while hydrothermal pre-treatment led to a biogas increase in a broader temperature range. The optimum temperature of both methods was 170 °C, where methane potentials increased by 28 % (vapothermal) and 36 % (hydrothermal) compared to the untreated sample. Considering the mass loss occurring during the pre-treatment, this increase was still 18 % for vapothermal pre-treatment, while it diminished the increase to 6 % for hydrothermal pre-treatment. Overall, vapothermal pre-treatment produced a similar amount of biogas under comparable conditions, but was less susceptible to carbon loss, and, according to an estimation of the required process energy, may offer energy savings compared to hydrothermal pre-treatment.