Degradation enhancement of rice straw by co-culture of Phanerochaete chrysosporium and Trichoderma viride

Straw is one of the most abundant stock of renewable biomass from crop production. However, its utilization efficiency is still very low. Although co-cultivation of fungi increases the degrading rate, the co-cultivation condition needs to be optimized. To optimize the co-culture condition of Phanerochaete chrysosporium and Trichoderma viride degrading rice straw, we first tested the antagonistic characteristic between the fungi. The results showed that the best co-culture pattern was to first inoculate P. chrysosporium and culture for 4 days, then inoculate T. viride, and co-culture the two fungi for 4 days. The optimum fermentation condition was 14% (w/v) of inoculum concentration, the equivalent inoculation of the fungi, culture temperature at 30 °C, and 1:1.4 for solid-liquid ratio. Under the optimum condition, the degradation ratios of lignin and cellulose were 26.38% and 33.29%, respectively; the soluble carbon content in the culture product was 23.07% (w/v). The results would provide important reference information for the efficient utilization of rice straw to produce more accessible energy resources, such as ethanol and glucose.