Sweet sorghum is one kind of non-food crop, whose stem juice is rich in fermentable sugars such as sucrose, fructose and glucose, and often used in the production of fuel ethanol. The sweet sorghum bagasse (SSB) after squeezing contains not only the soluble sugars mentioned above, but also cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin, among which cellulose and hemicellulose can be hydrolyzed by cellulase or acid to glucose, xylose, arabinose and other monosaccharides, which can be used for ethanol production or anaerobic fermentation to produce biogas and other clean energy. Sweet sorghum bagasse contains approximate 15% of lignin, which generates cross-linked structure with cellulose and hemicellulose, hinding the hydrolysis of cellulose and hemicellulose by cellulase. Therefore, to improve the enzymatic hydrolysis efficiency of sweet sorghum bagasse, physical, chemical, biological or a combination of these methods are often required [1–4]. The main purpose of these pretreatment methods is to increase the availability of enzymes to cellulose during the hydrolysis of cellulose, so as to improve the efficiency of enzymatic hydrolysis of lignocullulosic materials.
The Alkaline hydrogen peroxide (AHP) is a very effective chemical pretreatment method for lignocellulose because it can remove most of the acid-insoluble lignin from the bagasse by alkali lignin dissolution, while most of the cellulose and hemicellulose are retained [5, 6]. Using the improved AHP pretreatment method, Cao et al can greatly increase the hydrolysis efficiency of cellulose over 70% and the total sugar yield over 95%[5]. After AHP pretreatment, the enzymatic hydrolysis efficiency of solid residue can be greatly improved, and it is easy to be converted into biofuel [7]. The pretreatment effluent was not used for anaerobic digestion, mainly because the effluent contained high concentration of alkali metal ions, which had a strong inhibitory effect on microorganisms[8]. It has been reported that if the concentration of Na+ reached 10-11g/L, it would have a strong toxic effect on the methanogenesis process [9]. In addition, phenolic substances and carboxylic acids generated in the process of lignin dissolution by alkaline also inhibited the biogas production process[10]. These inhibition groups promoted the loss of biofilm and can affect its selectivity, slowed cell growth and lead to further sugar assimilation[11]. The washing of bagasse will lead to the loss of soluble sugar and increase the amount of waste liquid production, which will also increase the use of enzyme catalyst and increase the cost[12]. In fact, the effluent contains abundant fermentable substances such as free sugars and organic acids, which produced during the pretreatment process and can be converted into clean energy via anerobic digestion. Therefore, it is necessary to study the methane production potential of pretreatment sweet sorghum bagasse slurry (PSSBS), including pretreated bagassse and pretreatment effluent, not only to save energy, but also to solve potential environmental pollution problems.
In order to solve this problem, some researchers added zeolite into the digestion system to reduce the inbihion of sodium iont. Zeolite is a mineral material with large surface area, rough surface and perfect adsorption capacity. It can absorb metal ions and its porous structure has a strong agglomeration effect on microorganisms [13]. Research shows that zeolite has a good adsorption effect on ammonia nitrogen of anaerobic digestion liquid of urban organic waste, and the unique microporous structure of zeolite itself is conducive to the growth and reproduction of microorganisms, so it can be used as an ideal biological carrier [14]. In a study on anaerobic digestion of wastewater, it was also found that the addition of mineral materials could shorten the lag time of fermentation and increase methane production by 32%-117% [15].
Some TE (Fe, Ni, Cu, Zn, Mn, Mo, etc.) play a vital role in the synthesis of coenzyme and enzyme activity in the process of biogas production by anaerobic digestion microorganisms. The material metabolism and energy metabolism of methanogens require the participation of TE, such as Fe, which is involved in the synthesis of cytochrome and cell oxidase in methanogens. It is also an electron carrier for intracellular redox reactions [16]. The amount of TE required by methanogenic bacteria growth is rare, but the lack of TE can lead to the decrease of biological activity, and then affect the operation effect and stability of the whole anaerobic reactor [17]. The importance of TE to anaerobic fermentation is mainly reflected in that they often appear in the enzyme system of anaerobic digestion microorganisms as coenzymes, cogroups and cofactors, and play an important role in regulating the methanogenesis stage of anaerobic fermentation. It is a feasible method to enhance the efficiency of anaerobic digestion by adding TE to enhance the activity of microorganisms.
Therefore, to alleviate the inhibition effect of phenolic substances and the sodium ions on methanogenesis process, and improve the methanogenesis potential of sweet sorghum bagasse, the PSSBS were used for biogas production with zeolite and TE addition. The optimal dosage of zeolite was determined and the effects of zeolite and TE on dehydrogenase and cellulase activities were also studied. The results could provide reference for the industrial application of alkali pretreatment technology for sweet sorghum stalk residue.