ORIGINAL PAPER Enhanced Biogas Production During Anaerobic Digestion of Steam-Pretreated Lignocellulosic Biomass from Williams Cavendish Banana Plants Ire ´ne ´e Kamdem 1 • Serge Hiligsmann 1 • Caroline Vanderghem 2 • Nicolas Jacquet 2 • Florian Mathias Tiappi 2 • Aurore Richel 2 • Philippe Jacques 3 • Philippe Thonart 1 Received: 1 December 2015 / Accepted: 17 November 2016 Ó Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2016 Abstract In the context of green energy valorisation, this study reports the chemical analysis and improvement of biogas production via anaerobic digestion of treated and untreated agricultural waste lignocellulosic biomass from Williams Cavendish banana plants (WCLB). With a worldwide annual production of 26 million tons of dry matter (DM), large amounts of this waste are abandoned in plantations after fruit harvesting. Steam explosion (SE) and steam cracking (SC) pretreatments were investigated at severity factors of 3.16 and 4.29, respectively, to improve the biogas potential over 135 days under mesophilic con- ditions. The study revealed a carbon (C)/nitrogen (N) ratio of 27.3, indicating that WCLB has sufficient N content for successful fermentation. The proportions of liquid and solid fractions recovered after SC were 20 and 80%, respectively, whereas SE yielded 17 and 83% liquid and solids, respectively. The neutral sugar content of the studied fractions indicated that glucose and xylose consti- tuted the highest hexose and pentose fractions, respec- tively, in WCLB. The highest and lowest total biogas potentials were obtained from LFSC (280 mL g -1 of DM) and untreated WCLB (240 mL g -1 of DM), respectively. The methane yield from untreated WCLB and combined solid and liquid fractions from SE and SC were 40, 42, and 51%, respectively, of the theoretical methane potential. The maximum biogas production rate (7.8 mL g -1 day -1 ) was obtained with SFSC. This study reveals that SC deconstructs WCLB efficiently and thereby greatly enhances methane production. Keywords Anaerobic digestion Á Lignocellulosic agricultural waste biomass Á Biogas production Á Diluted acid hydrolysis Á Steam pretreatment Á William Cavendish banana plants Abbrevaitions ADv Average deviation BLB Banana lignocellulosic biomass BMP Biochemical methane potential DM Dry matter COD Chemical demand of oxygen LF Liquid fraction of treated WCLB LFSC Liquid fraction of steam-cracked WCLB LFSE Liquid fraction of steam-exploded WCLB RWCLB Raw William Cavendish lignocellulosic biomass SC Steam cracking SE Steam explosion SF Solid fraction of treated WCLB SFSC Solid fraction of steam-cracked WCLB SFSE Solid fraction of steam-exploded WCLB SLFSC Solid and liquid fractions of steam-cracked WCLB SLFSE Solid and liquid fractions of steam-exploded WCLB TBP Total biogas production TMP Total methane potential TMP exp Experimental total methane potential & Ire ´ne ´e Kamdem kamire88@gmail.com; ikamdem@doct.ulg.ac.be 1 Walloon Centre of Industrial Biology (CWBI), University of Lie `ge, Bd du Rectorat, 29, B40–P70, 4000 Lie `ge, Belgium 2 Unit of Biological and Industrial Chemistry, Gembloux Agro-Bio Tech, University of Lie `ge, Passage des De ´porte ´s2, 5030 Gembloux, Belgium 3 Microbial Processes and Interactions (MiPI) Research Unit, University of Lie `ge, Bd du Rectorat, 29, B40–P70, 4000 Lie `ge, Belgium 123 Waste Biomass Valor DOI 10.1007/s12649-016-9788-6