Kainthola, Jyoti2020-11-182023-10-192020-11-182023-10-192019ROLL NO.166152003https://gyan.iitg.ac.in/handle/123456789/1754Supervisor: Ajay S. Kalamdhad & V.V. GoudDue to rapid economic development over the past few decades, global energy consumption has intensified continuously, causing not only greenhouse gas emissions, but also energy shortage, and in some areas even energy crises. This imminent energy consumption and demand have been the motivation for world scientists to explore alternative energy sources that could replace fossil fuels. Agricultural residues (i.e., wheat straw, rice straw, corn straw, etc.) are the most abundant resource of lignocellulosic wastes, and contribute a major role in producing low-cost and sustainable forms of energy via anaerobic digestion. Anaerobic digestion is a realistic approach to concurrently manage rice straw and harness renewable energy. Inoculum plays a major role in the process of anaerobic digestion; selecting appropriate inoculum is a crucial factor to initiate the anaerobic digestion process.It not only validates the several biochemical and microbial processes, but also enhances the overall methane yield. In order to select the appropriate inoculum for rice straw, biochemical methane potential (BMP) assay of anaerobic digestion of rice straw with digested cow dung and fresh cow dung revealed methane yields of 125.77 and 72mL/g-VSadded, respectively. The 16S metagenomics sequencing revealed that DCD is enriched with majority of anaerobes.enENVIRONMENTThesis