Anaerobic digestion (AD) is an effective approach for achieving sustainable utilization of corn straw (CS) and promoting the development of circular economy. Pretreatment has been widely applied for AD to accelerate the solubilization of lignocellulosic components and enhance the hydrolysis rate. However, the pretreatment effects from the relevant literature are completely different, even for the same substrate and pretreatment technology, which results in a significant obstacle in determining the optimal pretreatment method for AD. To find the best pretreatment method for CS, this study performed a meta-analysis with 397 data extracted from 47 published studies to explore the impacts of different pretreatments on methane production of CS. The overall results of the meta-analysis showed that pretreatment significantly enhanced the methane production performance of CS with the mean effect size of 0.178. Notably, thermal-alkali-sonication, alkali-steam explosion, and alkali pretreatment exhibited significant advantages in CS anaerobic conversion, resulting in increases of 61.0 %, 49.1 %, and 34.9 % in methane production, respectively. The biological pretreatment performance was less favorable, and did not significantly impact methane production. This study not only establishes a reliable scientific basis for choosing the optimal pretreatment methods for CS, but also lays the foundation for engineering selection of pretreatment processes.

中文翻译：

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玉米秸秆预处理产甲烷效果的荟萃分析


厌氧消化（AD）是实现玉米秸秆（CS）可持续利用、促进循环经济发展的有效途径。预处理已广泛应用于AD，以加速木质纤维素成分的溶解并提高水解速率。然而，即使对于相同的基材和预处理技术，相关文献的预处理效果也完全不同，这给AD最佳预处理方法的确定带来了很大的障碍。为了找到最佳的CS预处理方法，本研究对47篇已发表研究中提取的397个数据进行了荟萃分析，探讨不同预处理对CS甲烷产量的影响。荟萃分析的总体结果表明，预处理显着提高了CS的产甲烷性能，平均效应大小为0.178。值得注意的是，热碱超声处理、碱蒸汽爆破和碱预处理在CS厌氧转化中表现出显着的优势，甲烷产量分别增加了61.0%、49.1%和34.9%。生物预处理性能较差，并且没有显着影响甲烷产量。该研究不仅为选择CS的最佳预处理方法奠定了可靠的科学依据，而且为预处理工艺的工程选择奠定了基础。