Journal of Energy Bioscience 2025, Vol.16, No.4, 172-181 http://bioscipublisher.com/index.php/jeb 174 season, and it is not always available stably (Li et al., 2021). Although there are a lot of corn stalks, they contain a high amount of cellulose and lignin, which are difficult to decompose and produce gas slowly. Moreover, this kind of stalk is troublesome to collect and transport, and the cost is high (Zhang et al., 2015; Sun et al., 2022; Liu et al., 2023). Kitchen garbage also has certain potential, but its composition is too complex and the collection system is not perfect, so it is difficult to use on a large scale (Zhang et al., 2015). In addition, the winter in the north is too cold, and the low temperature will reduce the biogas production, which also affects the use effect of traditional raw materials (Yan et al., 2022). Figure 1 Biogas production setup 3.3 Need for diversification Because traditional raw materials have many problems, such as low gas production, large seasonal changes, and difficult collection, people began to consider finding some new alternative raw materials. Sweet potato is a very promising choice. It has high yield and strong adaptability, and there are a lot of starch and sugar in the root tubers, which have high energy value and are very suitable for producing biogas (De Paula Batista et al., 2019; Montoro et al., 2025). Studies have found that if sweet potatoes or sweet potato waste are pretreated first, it can not only increase the production of biogas and methane, but also shorten the fermentation time. Moreover, if it is used together with livestock and poultry manure for synergistic fermentation, it will produce more gas and have higher economic benefits (Catherine and Twizerimana, 2022; Montoro et al., 2025). At present, many rural areas in southern China grow sweet potatoes, and the planting foundation is good. If sweet potatoes are promoted as a new biogas raw material, it will not only solve the problem of single type and seasonal shortage of traditional raw materials, but also make rural energy more abundant and sustainable (De Paula Batista et al., 2019; Tang et al., 2022). 4 Agronomic and Economic Suitability of Sweet Potato 4.1 Agronomic characteristics Sweet potato is a crop suitable for energy production, and it has many obvious advantages. First of all, it has high yield and low soil requirements, and can grow well even on poor land. This makes it easy to promote in rural areas. In addition, its short growth cycle allows it to be planted several times a year, and the land utilization rate is also higher. Through the improvement of breeding technology, as well as scientific fertilization and irrigation methods, sweet potatoes are now performing better and better under difficult conditions such as drought (Tedesco et al., 2023). 4.2 Comparative yield analysis Studies have found that the biomass yield and biogas production capacity of sweet potatoes are similar to those of other common energy crops, and some varieties even exceed cassava and corn. For example, some sweet potato varieties can produce about 2 900 liters of biogas per hectare, indicating that its methane production is very good .
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