Influence of sheep manure addition on biogas potential and methanogenic communities during cow dung digestion under mesophilic conditions

The efficient treatment of animal slurries can support the bioenergy management and environmental protection; however, the low biogas yield and quality are the major constraints. The object of this paper is to investigate how the co-digestion of sheep manure and cow dung by not using inoculum influences the performance of the process and determine the methanogenic communities at the end of the experiment. Biochemical Methane Potential essays were conducted in mesophilic conditions in order to determine the biogas-methane potential. Enhanced biogas production was achieved from the mono-digestion of cow dung with 104.3 NmL biogas g−1 VS and the co-digestion of cow dung and sterilized sheep manure with a lower biogas yield of 89.0 NmL biogas g−1 VS.