A review of anaerobic digestion bio-kinetics

Abstract

Anaerobic digestion is the key to sustainable wastewater management and bioenergy production. Kinetics plays an important role in the design of bioreactors, processes, and process scale-up in anaerobic digestion. This article focuses on a state-of-the-art literature review on the experimental kinetic studies of conventional anaerobic bioreactors and anaerobic membrane bioreactors. Various kinetic models that were used to fit the experimental data and derive the kinetic parameters are summarized and discussed in the literature. The values of the maximum specific growth rate µmax, half saturation constant Ks, decay co-efficient kd, sludge yield Y, and methane yield YCH4 from experimental studies are summarized for each model. This paper can serve as an updated comprehensive source of anaerobic bio-kinetic studies and digester design.