Enhanced wet anaerobic digestion of straw by co-culture of white-rot fungus and anaerobic sludge
Straw is one of the widely available renewable biomass resources.However,due to the diffi-cult degradability of the lignin structure,wet anaerobic fermentation is generally not highly utilized for straw at present.In this study,Phanerochaete chrysosporium,a white-rot fungus,was co-cultivated with anaerobic sludge under microaerobic conditions to investigate its effect on methane production from straw in wet anaerobic fermentation.The results showed that the substrate methane yield(75.76 mL/g VS)and TCOD removal in the co-culture group increased by 45%and 37%,respectively,compared to the non-co-culture group at 0.6 mg/L dissolved oxygen.Electrochemical analysis revealed that co-culture effectively increased the sludge capacitance by 182.9%.The introduction of Phanerochaete chrysosporium made the straw easier to digest and produced electroactive substances,which intensified the humifica-tion process and extracellular electron transfer,and consequently increased methane production.Effec-tive utilization of straw without pretreatment was achieved in this study,providing a reference for further straw resource recovery.