Assessment of the methane production potential of the anaerobic digestion of ribes fruit

Ribes Fruit (RF) is an underutilized resource. Here, the Anaerobic Digestion (AD) process parameters for RF optimized via medium temperature batch AD experiments using Box–Behnken response surface design. The optimal methane production process conditions were an organic loading of 16.15 g Volatile Solids (VS)/L, an inoculum to substrate ratio of 2.05, and an initial pH of 7.46. The measured value of cumulative methane yield under these conditions was 357.42 mL/g VS, which was very close to the model predicted value (346.44 mL/g VS), with a relative error of less than 5%, indicating that the response surface model was valid. The findings also show that RF has strong methane production potential compared to other types of residual biomass, and is easier, more efficient, and more environmentally friendly to use as an AD feedstock. This research highlights RF as a new potential feedstock for biogas engineering and advances the application of RF for AD from theory to practice.