Anaerobic Microbial Hydrolysis of Agriculture Waste for Biogas Production

Agriculture waste is an organic material and can be used to produce biogas through anaerobic digestion, thus providing an alternative for Agriculture waste use and mitigating the pollution. Agriculture waste is mainly composed of three groups of polymers, namely cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin. Cellulose and hemicellulose are sugar rich fractions of interest for use in fermentation processes. Hydrolysis is the process that converts complex organic matter(cellulose and hemicellulose) to soluble compounds such a simple sugar that can be used by bacteria performing fermentation and compound such as ethanol, biogas organic acids and others are produced. Lignin is a very complex molecule and is closely bound to cellulose and hemicellulose. It provide rigidity and cohesion to the material cell wall, and thus form a barrier against microbial attack and prevents the accessibility of enzymes to their substrate, hence making hydrolysis a rate limiting factor in anaerobic digestion of agriculture waste. The main objective of this study is to accelerate the biogas generation from agriculture waste by enhancing the hydrolysis process of agriculture waste using anaerobic hydrolytic microorganism isolated from cattle dung and by providing pre-treatment to agriculture waste prior to hydrolysis. Screening for cellulase and xylanase activity by clear zone formed around colonies in carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC) and Xylan based agar media and to determine the effect of isolated hydrolytic microorganism on hydrolysis rate of agriculture waste and biogas generation potential