Effects of microbial and non-microbial factors of liquid anaerobic digestion effluent as inoculum on solid-state anaerobic digestion of corn stover

• Solid state anaerobic digestion (SS-AD) using liquid AD effluent as inoculum.
• Effect of microbial and non-microbial factors of effluent on performance of SS-AD.
• Non-microbial factor of effluent was more influential on methane yield of SS-AD.
• Both bacterial and archaeal communities underwent considerable successions.

The microbial activity of the inoculum (liquid anaerobic digestion effluent) was altered by autoclaving part of the effluent to study the effect of feedstock to active effluent ratio (F/Ea, 2.2–6.6) and the feedstock to total effluent ratio (F/Et, 2.2 and 4.4) on reactor performance in solid state anaerobic digestion (SS-AD) of corn stover. When the F/Ea ratio was increased from 2.2 to 6.6, methane yield was not significantly reduced; however, reactors became acidified when the F/Et ratio was increased from 2.2 to 4.4. It was concluded that F/Et had a greater effect on methane yields than F/Ea for the range studied in this paper. As analyzed by denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis using PCR amplified 16S rRNA genes, the microbial community underwent dynamic shifts under acidified conditions over 38 days of SS-AD. These shifts reflected the acclimation, both adaptive selection and diversification, of the initial inoculated microbial consortia.