Effect of Combined Alkali-Thermal Pretreatment on Methane Potential from BMP of Date Palm Empty Fruit Bunch

This study focuses on evaluating the effect of combined alkali-thermal pretreatment on the methane potential of the date palm empty fruit bunch (EFB). For this purpose, the Biochemical Methane Potential (BMP) tests were conducted with substrate:inoculum ratio of 2, the alkali pretreatment was tested with 6% (w/w) (ratio weight of NaOH/weight of VS) and with the thermal condition at 50 °C for 10 min. The anaerobic digestion experiments were conducted at mesophilic conditions (37 °C). The combined alkali-thermal pretreatment result (144 NmL/gVS) was better than the alkali pretreatment one (132 NmL/gVS), knowing that the methane potential for the control test was only 118.5 NmL/gVS. Furthermore, the kinetic study was applied for all experimental results to explore the best fitting and process parameters (Modified Gompertz, Logistic function Transference function and First-order function). The Transference function corresponds to the higher µ and R2, which allows concluding that this model is the more adequate to the kinetic modeling fitting.