Dry mesophilic anaerobic co-digestion of vegetable wastes with animal manures using leach bed reactor

Abstract

Anaerobic digestion is an environmentally sustainable technology for converting a variety of organic solid feedstocks to energy in the form of methane. To improve methane yield, the digestion of more than one waste is commonly applied. This study aimed to investigate the dry anaerobic co-digestion (TS of 20%) of vegetable wastes (VW) and animal manures (cow manure (CM) and poultry manure (PM)) through conducting biochemical methane potential (BMP) assays at different substrate to inoculum (S/I) ratio. Fractionation and fluorescence analyses showed that organic matter of VW was less accessible and less complex compared to that of CM and PM. The highest methane yields of mono-digestion experiments were registered with S/I 0.5. Best results of methane yield were observed by the co-digestion of VW and CM (284 mL/g VS), which was about 2.3-fold higher than that of VW mono-fermentation. This finding was confirmed at a laboratory-scale leach bed reactor. Result showed an increase of biogas yield from 220 to 445 mL/g VS, during mono and co-digestion, respectively. The co-digestion of VW and CM mixture led to the enhancement of both methane yield and digestate quality in comparison to mono-digestion.