Background: Anaerobic digestion of agro-industrial residues that with rich lignocellulosics biomass is regarded as one of the cost-efficient and environmentally beneficial technologies for biofuels production. While, pretreatment is necessary to degrade cellulose and hemicellulose for enhancing the potential bio-digestibility process for biogas producing. Thus, the effects of co-ensiling of corn straw and potato pulp inoculated with ferulic acid esterase-producing Lactobacillus plantarum A1 or cellulases on lignocellulosic degradation, enzymatic hydrolysis and theoretical biochemical methane potential were investigated with two mixture ratios. Four treatments were applied: without additive (C), L. plantarum A1 (P), cellulases (E) and combination of L. plantarum A1 and cellulases (P+E). Two mixture ratios were used: weight ratio of wet corn straw (rehydrated to 460 g/kg fresh weight) and potato pulp of 4:1 (CP) and weight ratio of dry corn straw and potato pulp of 1:2 (PC).
Results: The results revealed that silages treated with E and P+E performed better regarding lignocelluloses degradation by lowering the contents of lignocelluloses with prolonged fermentation time and preserved more available carbohydrates. The P and C resulted in greater enzymatic hydrolysis as indicated by higher glucose yield, cellulose convertibility and relative improvement ratio especially at 60 and 90 d of co-ensiling. For biofuels producing, the CP ratio of mixture had higher theoretical methane yield than PC ratio. Therefore, Co-ensiling CP ratio with additives E and P+E for 90 d might be considerable pretreatment of mixed corn stalk and potato pulp for biogas production.
Conclusions: This work will helpful in investigating pretreatment of biomass that with rich lignocellulosics. In addition, the visualization results of the process of lignocellulosic degradation could be used for guidance to explore the lignocellulosic biomass using for large-scale biofuels production. Keywords: Co-ensiling, Theoretical methane yield, Silage additives, Solanum tuberosum , Zea mays