Improving anaerobic digestion of easy-acidification substrates by promoting buffering capacity using biochar derived from vermicompost.

Acid-buffering of VCBC and VC was evaluated using 4 VFAs, and their application on anaerobic digestion of CM and KW was investigated. Results indicated acid-buffering capacity of VCBC to acetic, propionic, butyric, and valeric acid was 2.5, 1.1, 1.9 and 1.6-fold higher comparing with VC. CM digestion was not initiated at higher organic loading of 50gTS/kg, while it worked well with 5.0% VCBC or VC. KW was not digested even though VC or VCBC was increased to 15% and 20%. However, KW digestion can be alleviated with increasing VCBC or VC proportion, in which the alleviation by VCBC was better than VC. Average VFAs concentration during CM digestion with VC was 4077.7mg/L comparing with 2835.8mg/L of VCBC, and biogas release was delayed for 10-days accompanying rapid pH decrease in CM digestion with VC, which reflected acid-buffering of biochar played a crucial role on improving anaerobic digestion.