Shumblan (SH) is one of the most undesirable aquatic plants widespread in the irrigation channels and water bodies. This work focuses on boosting the biogas potential of shumblan by co-digesting it with other types of wastes without employing any chemical or thermal pretreatments as done in previous studies. A maximum biogas recovery of 378 ml/g VS was reached using shumblan with cow manure as inoculum in a ratio of 1:1. The methane content of the biogas was 55%. Based on volatile solid (VS) and C/N ratios, biogas productions of 518, 434, and 580 ml/g VS were obtained when the shumblan was co-digested with food wastes (SH:F), paper wastes (SH:P), and green wastes (SH:G) respectively. No significant changes of methane contents were observed during the anaerobic co-digestion of shumblan with the selected wastes. This noticeable increments of biogas yields proved that this sort of biomass can be utilized as a promising source for bioenergy production of industrial scale because of its economic operation. Slight pH variations indicated that the co-digestion performance has a good stability operation and no excessive amounts of volatile fatty acid were accumulated. The results also proved that by using co-digestion technology, the biodegradation of shumblan plants could be significantly accelerated supplying greater amounts of biogas yields. Moreover, the appropriate co-digestion with other wastes gave the shumblan high digestibility and, hence, there will be no need to prior pretreatment in order to boost the biogas yield.
