Continuous anaerobic conversion of sugar beet pulp to biogas

Abstract

A continuous two step anaerobic digestion of sugar beet pulp as carbon and energy source was carried out. The loading rates in the acidification reactor were varied from 5 g·1−1·d−1 to 15 g·1−1·d−1 while the hydraulic retention time was in the range of 10 hours to 30 hours; the corresponding values for the methane reactor varied from 2 days to nearly 6 days. With this reactor configuration a biogas yield of more than 85% of the theoretical value for total carbon conversion was achieved resulting in a corresponding COD reduction.