Agave bagasse response to steam explosion and anaerobic treatment

Global aspirations for more sustainable development and governmental agreements at the international level have incentivized the tequila industry, an important producer of beverages in Mexico, to look for greener production schemes. The main by-product, agave bagasse, generated during production has not been handled properly up to now, even though it could be a low-cost resource to cover energy requirements in facility. In this context, this study aims to reduce this waste product in a process combination of steam explosion and anaerobic digestion to find a more sustainable solution for agave bagasse management. At the laboratory scale, it is demonstrated that the steam explosion pretreatment can accelerate hydrolysis of agave bagasse; however, the methane yield of 235 mL N g VS −1 for the steam-exploded substrate was only 11% higher than that of the bioconversion of the untreated lignocellulosic material. The process combination proposed in this study is able to concentrate 49% of the original energy content in the biogas.