ASSESSING THE POTENTIAL ROLE OF ANAEROBIC DIGESTION ON BIODEGRADABILITY OF COPPER TREATED BIOMASS

Bach anaerobic digestion was carried out under mesophilic condition at the temperature of 370C and retention time of 30 days. Two sets of cultures were prepared in 500 ml capacity incubation bottles. The first set contained required amount of pre-adsorption feedstock and the second set with post-adsorption feedstock containing 50 mg/l of copper. The feedstocks are corn cob, mango peel waste, rice husk and seaweed (Ascophyllum nodosum sp.). The results show that in the raw feedstocks the amount of the total solids progressively decreases with time from 25.98 g/l at Time zero (t = 0) to 14.45 g/l in 30 days for corn cob, however, in the spent corn cob more of the total solid was lost from 26.78 g/l to 9.39 g/l during the same period. Similar trend of total solid reduction were observed in Mango peel, Rice husk and Seaweed regardless of the metal content of the spent feedstocks. While there were variations in the trend of volatile solid reduction, it was clear that the effect of metals within the concentration of 50 mg/l on the entire anaerobic process was insignificant. This study concludes that anaerobic digestion process is a viable option for effective degradation of waste biomass.