Ultrasonic and thermal pretreatments to enhance the anaerobic bioconversion of olive husks

Olive husks, typical solid by-products from the olive oil industry, were selected to carry out anaerobic digestion tests. Before digestion, olive husks were subjected to ultrasonic or thermal pretreatments in order to release the organic matter into solution. Both sonication and thermal pretreatment allowed to solubilize the particulate matter with 22% and 72% increase in soluble organics of olive husks, respectively. Nevertheless, such pretreatments caused the release of unwanted molecules in solution, with the related risks of inhibition of the methanogenic process. Biochemical Methane Potential (BMP) tests on olive husks mixed with olive-mill wastewater and dairy wastewater, either pretreated or not, showed that ultrasound pretreatment resulted in 15% increase in volatile solids reduction and a 13% increase in biogas production, while after thermal pretreatment no benefits were observed.