Addition of microbial consortium to the rice straw biomethanization: effect on specific methanogenic activity, kinetic and bacterial community.

The biomethanization of lignocellulosic wastes remains an inefficient and complex process due to lignin structures that hinder the hydrolysis step, therefore, some treatments are required. This work describes the addition of an enriched microbial consortium in the biomethanization of rice straw. The experiment was carried out in lab batch reactors following two strategies: (i) pretreatment of rice straw for 48 h using the enriched microbial consortium (dilution 1:100), and (ii) addition of this enriched microbial consortium (dilution 1:100) directly to the anaerobic reactors (bioaugmentation). The kinetic behavior was described using three models. As a result, the microbial consortium molecular characterization showed 58 different bacterial species, predominantly the Lactobacillaceae family (45.7%), and the Clostridiaceae family (19.1%), which were responsible for the positive effect obtained by bioaugmentation with methane yield increases of 16% (290 L_NCH₄/kgVS) respect to the control. All kinetic models applied fitted the experimental data for cumulative methane production, although the modified Hill model showed the best fit. Bioaugmentation strategies demonstrate their effectiveness in lignocellulosic biodegradation, but the novelty of this research lies in the application of an enriched microbial consortium obtained by the authors through soil isolation techniques, which are very inexpensive and affordable for developing countries.