Dual optimization in anaerobic digestion of rice straw: Effects HRT and OLR coupling on methane production in one-stage and two-stage systems

This experiment reports an energy-saving, cost-effective and environmental-friendly method to recover energy from high-cellulose waste: anaerobic digestion (AD) by extending hydraulic residence time (HRT) from 50d to 70d with ultra-high organic loading rate (OLR) of 2.28-2.80 g TS·L^-1 d^-1. The results indicate that biogas yield per VS and methane yield per VS increase with the extended HRT, with a maximum increase of up to 67.9%, while both yields decrease as OLR increases. The volumetric gas production (VGP) and volumetric methane production (VMP) improve by 20.2-37.3% when HRT is extended to 57 days and OLR is 2.80 g TS·L^-1 d^-1, reaching a peak at this point. As the biogas production capacity of the two-stage anaerobic digestion reaches its peak, the gap between the one-stage system and the two-stage system decreases from 23% to 7% under the same conditions. This demonstrates that optimizing HRT and OLR not only enhance the gas production efficiency of the AD system but also reduce the gas production disparity between single-stage and two-stage systems, thus serving as a cost-effective method for engineering operations. Microbial community analysis of each system reveals that extending HRT increases the abundance and diversity of microbial communities, while changes in HRT and OLR result in significant shifts in the distribution of methanogens. Through reasonable regulation of HRT and OLR, a balance can be found between the full degradation of organic matter and the system load, so as to maximize biogas production and efficiency.