Experiments on the gas production of brown coal degraded by exogenous methanogens

Abstract

To investigate the ability of exogenous bacteria to degrade brown coal, methanogens were enriched from anaerobic sludge and domesticated using brown coal as carbon source. After domestication, the lag time of initial gas production is shortened from 12 to 6 days and the CH4 production increased by 29.2% in 30 days. The generated biogas is composed of CH4 and a little CO2, no heavy hydrocarbons are detected. Experiments on gas production influencing factors demonstrate that the best initial pH for the culture medium is 7.0 and the maximum gas production is 1.9 times and 2.4 times higher than that at pH 6.4 and pH 7.4, respectively. The particle size of coal is one of factors influencing the gas production: the general trend is the smaller the particle size, the bigger the gas production, but the variation of gas production is not significant with decreasing particle size. Gas produced by the culture medium accounts for around 50% of the total gas production and it is likely caused by the addition of L-cysteine (0.5 g/L) and yeast extract (1 g/L) to the medium. Key words: methanogen, brown coal, exogenous bacteria, domestication, coal-derived gas