Abstract
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•Poultry litter and wheat straw were used for anaerobic co-digestion (ACoD).•The ACoD was creatively started up by gradually increasing organic loading rate.•The started ACoD process showed continuous methane production performance.•Overall microbial community and the archaeal community were both analyzed.•The dominant methanogen, aceticlastic Methanosaeta, was enriched.
Anaerobic co-digestion (ACoD) of poultry litter (PL) and wheat straw (WS) in an anaerobic sequencing batch reactor (ASBR) for continuous bio-energy generation was started up for the first time by gradually increasing the organic loading rate (OLR). A steady-state was reached with a daily biogas production of (13.06 ± 0.21) L and methane content of (54.38 ± 0.53) %. The subsequent regular operation achieved a daily methane yield of (100.41–188.65) mL CH4/g VS added and a total chemical oxygen demand (tCOD) removal rate of (70.3–85.9) % in the effluent under different operating parameters. The overall microbial community became more uniform, and the dominant aceticlastic methanogen of Methanosaeta was enriched after the start-up. While the microbial community was largely stable in the overall structure since the regular operation. Therefore, the start-up of the ACoD of PL and WS was successful with stable and continuous methane production.