Liquid Hot Water Pretreatment of Paddy Straw for Enhanced Biomethanation

Indian agriculture produces nearly 150-160 million tons of paddy straw per annum. 70-80 % of total produced rice straw is burned in the open field for cultivation of the next crop. Proper disposal of paddy straw in an economical and environment friendly manner is a serious concern in India, where rice is the major agricultural crop in some states. The work presented in the paper is focused on pretreatment of paddy straw using liquid hot water treatment followed by biomethanation. Results observed during batch process are encouraging and work is being carried out for bigger models. Under batch condition with similar to 5-7 kg of paddy straw can yield 1.0 m(3) of biogas with average methane content of 60.0 and 25-30 % carbon dioxide content during retention period of 40 days.