Modeling and optimization of biomethane production from solid-state anaerobic co-digestion of organic fraction municipal solid waste and other co-substrates

Abstract

ABSTRACT One of the simplest methods for increasing productivity in biogas production is co-digestion. Co-digestion leads to more biogas yield as well as more nutrient bioavailability. This study reports the modeling and optimization of biomethane potential tests from different combinations of organic fraction of municipal solid wastes (OFMSW), cow manure (CM), and municipal sewage sludge (MSS) in solid-state. The simplex-centroid mixture design (SCMD) and artificial neural network (ANN) models were validated with a high correlation to the real data (R2 = 0.99). Experimental results indicated that the maximum amount of CH4 production of 436 mL CH4/g VS occurs at the identical weight percent of the three substances (33.33%). The maximum methane yield was found to be 445.9 mL CH4/g VS as obtained by the genetic algorithm (GA) optimization process, while 448.5 mL CH4/g VS (448.5 ± 3.05) of methane was produced experimentally. Therefore, integration of the SCMD and ANN model with the GA optimization is useful in the prediction of biomethane production. This research is the first in providing the best combination of co-treating and co-utilizing OFMSW with CM and MSS in the solid-state for biowaste management.