Rapid generation of volatile fatty acids (VFA) through anaerobic acidification of livestock organic waste at low hydraulic residence time (HRT)

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of pre-treatment and F/M (Food to Microorganism) ratios for the rapid generation of volatile fatty acids (VFA) from livestock organic wastes (cattle manure (CM) and poultry litter (PL)) through an anaerobic acidification process at a pH range of 4.5–5.5. Experiments were organized using CM and PL in batch reactors (1L and 25L) with and with no pre-treatment of substrate at F/M ratios (0.4, 0.6, 0.8 and 1). Among various existing pre-treatments methods, thermal-acidic (120°C; 1% H2SO4) pre-treatment was found effective. The results revealed that 0.31 and 0.47kg VFA/(kg VS reduced) could be obtained from CM and PL respectively with no pre-treatment, whereas it improvised to 0.43 and 0.67kg VFA/(kg VS reduced) correspondingly due to pre-treatment. Aforesaid, better yield of VFA was obtained at F/M ratio of 1.0, pH-5.5 and hydraulic residence time of 4days.