Biological treatment of lignocellulosic biomass by Curvularia lunata for biogas production.

In the present study, biological treatment of lignocellulosic biomass has been performed by employing Curvularia lunata. Optimization of treatment conditions was performed by using response surface methodology to reduce the duration of treatment time. Three factors were studied at three severity levels: temperature - 28, 32, 36 °C; moisture content - 65, 75, 85%; treatment time - 14, 28, 42 days. Released reducing sugars were considered as the output response as the disruption of lignin barrier by biological treatment should increase the quantity of free reducing sugar. Impact of different combinations of factors (at varying severity levels) on output response was studied to attain the optimized conditions: 32 °C, 23 days and 65% moisture. Predicted outcomes were aligned with the experimental results (R = 0.93). After treating at optimized conditions, wheat and pearl millet straw were subjected to anaerobic digestion and showcased 19 and 28% increase in biogas production respectively as compared to the untreated straws.