Aurelio Briones | Assistant Professor | »
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Plant, Soil & Entomological Sciences
During investigations using biochar (charcoal for soil application) as an amendment during
composting of a mixture of dairy manure, food waste, paper and wood pellets, we developed
conditions that stably (from 100 to more than 500 hours) and reproducibly maintained microbial
consortia dominated by diverse genera and species of Clostridia. We consider the early stage of
this process as a biological pretreatment. We hypothesize that biological pretreatment that
subjects the feedstock to moderately high temperature and stable establishment of cellulolytic
bacteria such as Clostridia will lead to enhanced methane yield upon transfer of the material to
an anaerobic digester. We further propose that feedstock supplemented with biochar is more
amenable to solid-state or dry anaerobic digestion, a process that saves on operating energy and
water. We will determine methane yields from feedstock that has undergone biological
pretreatment and compare this to untreated feedstock under solid-state and completely mixed
submerged conditions. We will investigate the role of biochar in promoting anaerobic digestion
under solid-state conditions through microbe-surface area interactions and increased water
retention. We will use various molecular and microscopic methods to identify and quantify the
major bacterial populations involved in cellulolytic and saccharolytic activities during
pretreatment and anaerobic digestion.