Ensiling of crops for biogas production: effects on methane yield and total solids determination
Open accessAbstract
BACKGROUND: Ensiling is a common method of preserving energy crops for anaerobic digestion, and many scientific studies report that ensiling increases the methane yield. In this study, the ensiling process and the methane yields before and after ensiling were studied for four crop materials. RESULTS: The changes in wet weight and total solids (TS) during ensiling were small and the loss of energy negligible. The methane yields related to wet weight and to volatile solids (VS) were not significantly different before and after ensiling when the VS were corrected for loss of volatile compounds during TS and VS determination. However, when the TS were measured according to standard methods and not corrected for losses of volatile compounds, the TS loss during ensiling was overestimated for maize and sugar beet. The same methodological error leads to overestimation of methane yields; when TS and VS were not corrected the methane yield appeared to be 51% higher for ensiled than fresh sugar beet. CONCLUSIONS: Ensiling did not increase the methane yield of the studied crops. Published methane yields, as well as other information on silage related to uncorrected amounts of TS and VS, should be regarded with caution.
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Losses of volatile organic acids and alcohols during oven-drying can lead to an overestimation of methane yields of silages with larger amounts of volatile compounds.
“This can lead to an overestimation of methane yields of silages with larger amounts of volatile compounds (Kreuger et al., 2011).”
From Improving aerobic stability and biogas production of maize silage using silage additives (2015) · cites this paper as Kreuger et al., 2011
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Improving aerobic stability and biogas production of maize silage using silage additives
Herrmann, C., Idler, C., & Heiermann, M. (2015) · Bioresource Technology · doi:10.1016/j.biortech.2015.08.114 · Cited by 90 · see citing works
- Authors
- Kreuger, E., Nges, I., & Björnsson, L.
- Affiliations
- Lund University (SE)
- Corresponding author
- Kreuger, Emma
- Venue
- Biotechnology for Biofuels
- Published
- 2011
- Volume
- 4
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 44
- ISSN
- 1754-6834 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC3240833
- OpenAlex
- W2103985467
- Cited by
- 153
- References
- 32
- Citations by year
- 2026: 4 · 2025: 5 · 2024: 8 · 2023: 9 · 2022: 11 · 2021: 15 · 2020: 10 · 2019: 9 · 2018: 16 · 2017: 13 · 2016: 14 · 2015: 11 · 2014: 12 · 2013: 6 · 2012: 8
- FWCI
- 19.49
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- cc-by
- Locations
- Biotechnology for Biofuels (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Lund University Publications (Lund University) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- Svenska Forskningsrådet Formas
- Vetenskapsrådet
- Sveriges Lantbruksuniversitet
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Engineering › Building and Construction › Anaerobic Digestion and Biogas Production
- Physical Sciences › Engineering › Biomedical Engineering › Biofuel production and bioconversion
- Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Agronomy and Crop Science › Ruminant Nutrition and Digestive Physiology
- Keywords
- silage fermentation, silage, biogas production, methane yield, anaerobic digestion, total solids, volatile solids, energy crops, maize, sugar beet, methodological errors
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