MINI-REVIEW Enzymatic pretreatment and anaerobic co-digestion as a new technology to high-methane production Janaína dos Santos Ferreira 1 & Débora de Oliveira 1 & Rafael Resende Maldonado 2 & Eliana Setsuko Kamimura 3 & Agenor Furigo Jr 1 Received: 9 January 2020 /Revised: 25 February 2020 /Accepted: 3 March 2020 # Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2020 Abstract The population growth is causing an increase in the generation of effluents (mainly organic fraction of municipal solid waste (OFMSW) and agro-industrial waste), which is an old problem in agro-industrial countries such as Brazil. Contrastingly, it is possible to add value to these residual biomasses (residues) through the application of new technologies for the production of bioenergy. Anaerobic digestion (AD) of sewage sludge is being applied in many effluent treatment plants for the sustainable and economically viable production of biogas. However, the biogas produced from AD (sludge) or co-digestion (sludge with other residues) presents a concentration of methane between 60 and 70% on average, which is relatively low. This review is aimed at analyzing studies involving (i) production of lipases by solid-state fermentation (SSF) by different microorganisms for the application in enzymatic pretreatments prior to the anaerobic treatment of effluents; (ii) pretreatment followed by AD of various residues, with an emphasis on OFMSW and sewage sludge; and (iii) more recent studies on anaerobic co-digestion (AcoD) and hybrid technologies (pretreatment + AD or AcoD). There are many studies in the literature that demonstrate the enzymatic pretreatment or AcoD applied to the optimization of methane production. Nevertheless, few studies report the combination of these two technologies, which can improve the process and reduce or eliminate the costs of biogas purification, which are major challenges for the viability of this route of bioenergy production. Key points • Municipal and agro-industrial wastes have potential as medium for lipase production. • Enzymatic pretreatment and anaerobic co-digestion are low cost for high-methane production. Keywords High-methane production . Anaerobic co-digestion . Agro-industrial and municipal wastes . Enzymatic pretreatment * Débora de Oliveira debora.oliveira@ufsc.br Janaína dos Santos Ferreira janajanee@hotmail.com Rafael Resende Maldonado ratafta@unicamp.br Eliana Setsuko Kamimura elianask@usp.br Agenor Furigo, Jr agenor.furigo@ufsc.br 1 Department of Chemical and Food Engineering, Federal University of Santa Catarina, Campus Universitário Reitor João David Ferreira Lima, Florianópolis, Santa Catarina 88040-900, Brazil 2 Department of Food, Technical College of Campinas, University of Campinas, Campinas, São Paulo 13083-862, Brazil 3 Faculty of Animal Science-Zootecnia and Food Engineering, University of São Paulo (FZEA/USP), Pirassununga, São Paulo, Brazil Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-020-10526-x