Bioavailability and dosing strategies of mineral in anaerobic mono‐digestion of maize straw

The influence of the bonding form distribution of Fe, Ni, Co and Mn and their potential bioavailability during the anaerobic degradation of maize straw was investigated. Two reactors were operated over 117 days at 37°C and different dosage strategies of mineral were studied in reactor (R2). Control reactor (R1) was metal-limited over time. mineral supplementation (1 g L-1) once a week reported the highest methane yield (257 mL g-1 VS) with 30% of increment. Ni and Co predominated in their oxidizable bonding forms and Fe mainly existed as residual and oxidizable fractions. The potential bioavailability (Mn ˃˃ Co ≈ Ni ˃ Fe) of R2 was higher comparing to R1. Metal deprivation in R1 led to depletion of both sequential extraction fractions and total metal concentrations until the end of the process. This study confirmed that the dosage strategy of mineral has a stimulatory effect on methane production from crop maize waste.