Abstract
ABSTRACTIn this novel industrial scale case study, the bioenergy recovery based on sole and mixed cow-buffalo (CBM) and potato waste (PW) substrates has been analyzed in real time, i.e., on-site on a full-scale operational anaerobic digestion (AD) plant. The plant employed in this study is a novel design, consisting of tri-digesters connected via an underground upflow anaerobic sludge blanket (UASB) type lagoon allowing it to function as a continuous-flow reactor. The system has been further equipped with CSTR, microwave heating, gas scrubbers, compression, and storage systems. The highest energy recovery readings were 123.9 m3/1,000 kg, 77 m3/1,000 kg, and 151.6 kWh/1,000 kg in terms of biogas, bio-methane, and electricity generated, respectively, with 75:25 ratio of CBM:PW. Operating with 100% CBM, yields of 79.9 m3/1,000 kg, 47 m3/1,000 kg, and 95 kWh/1,000 kg were obtained. The percentage of recovery in bio-methane production increased on using the mixed substrates, but it was the lowest with a 25:75 ratio of CBM:PW. The electrical power generation efficiency was found to be significantly increased, but not distinctively with the plant aggregate power rating that was probably associated with the variable quality of biogas which was fed to the power generator. A linear regression analysis had shown a significant and positive correlation between the rate of VS removal and biogas yield.
Highlights
Anaerobic digestion (AD) has been proven to be an efficient and profitable technique for the treatment and conversion of organic wastes into energy; likewise, many lab-scale experiments have shown that co-digested organic substrates give more efficient comparative outputs of bioenergy (Esposito et al 2012)
The reasons for such failures are mostly the different operating conditions and the use of synthetic feedstock (Hosseini and Wahid 2013). These problems lead the authors to invest in a sophisticated medium industrial scale AD plant, which is more practical, convenient, and realistic R&D so to validate the results and advance more readily toward the commercial– industrial scale bioenergy generation (Song et al 2014)
Bioenergy recovery in terms of biogas and methane yields against 100% cow and buffalo manure (CBM) is shown in Figs. 2 and 3, respectively
Summary
Anaerobic digestion (AD) has been proven to be an efficient and profitable technique for the treatment and conversion of organic wastes into energy; likewise, many lab-scale experiments have shown that co-digested organic substrates give more efficient comparative outputs of bioenergy (Esposito et al 2012). The extrapolation of labscale results to a pilot scale and commercially operable AD plant often leads to deceiving results (Weiland 2010) The reasons for such failures are mostly the different operating conditions and the use of synthetic feedstock (Hosseini and Wahid 2013). These problems lead the authors to invest in a sophisticated medium industrial scale AD plant, which is more practical, convenient, and realistic R&D so to validate the results and advance more readily toward the commercial– industrial scale bioenergy generation (Song et al 2014). In such a novel pilot scale, realistic operational conditions can be corrected on a daily basis (Hosseini et al 2013), using online monitoring measurements (too expensive for labscale) and using real quantities and qualities of
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