Effect of mixing fresh substrate with solid digested material in batch-dry anaerobic digestion kinetics

X. Gmez, E. Martnez* A. Morn and D. Blanco. Institute of Natural Resources (University of Len). Av. de Portugal, 41, 24071 Len, Spain Corresponding author: ejmartr@unileon.es

Introduction
Efficient management of agricultural and livestock wastes reduces the risk of uncontrolled contamination and disperse pollution. Energy recovery from these wastes may be possible by means of anaerobic digestion and posterior valorization of biogas, obtaining also a digestate which is susceptible of further use as it is land application. Batch-dry anaerobic digestion (AD) has several advantages. Neither additional water nor wastewater takes part into the process. Percolate, which presents lower solid content than heavy slurries from continuous dry and wet AD processes, is more easily pumped and less power demanding. Multiple cells can simultaneously operate in a plant in order to reduce the impact of idle time associated with digester loading (Spencer, 2010). These reactors are usually started-up by spraying a liquid percolate into the top of the digester, and then allowing gravity draining through the digesting material (Spencer, 2010). Over the digestion time, the percolate is repeatedly drained and sprayed back into the digester. This work focuses on the inoculation step, assessing the effect of either adding digested solid material or digested sludge over the kinetic of biogas production.

Materials and Methods

Cattle manure originated from livestock farms where straw was regularly used as bedding material. The cattle manure had an initial concentration of total solids (TS) of 181.9 g kg-1, with a percentage of volatile solids (VS) of 87% (wt%). The digestion was carried out in a 3 l reactor with recirculation of percolate. Reactors worked under mesophilic conditions (34 C) in batch operation mode and were thermostatized by means of a water jacket. In the first experiment, the reactor (R1) was loaded with 1132 g of substrate and inoculated with 500 ml of active mesophilic inoculum with a TS concentration of 43.1 g l-1 and a percentage of VS of 54% (wt%). The percolate was generated by the addition of 700 ml of tap water at the beginning of the trial. The second digester (R2) was loaded with 500 g of fresh substrate mixed with 500 g of the stabilized product obtained from R1. This digestate had a TS concentration of 132 g kg-1 and a percentage of VS of 67% (wt%). The digestion processes were concluded once the daily gas production was negligible (42d to R1, 22d R2 ). Figure 1 shows the parameters were periodically measures during the stabilization processs:
Recirculation of liquid fraction (leachate) Biogas production Monitoring of liquid fraction
TS, VS COD N-NH3 pH Alkalinity VFAs

Results & Discussion

Figure 2 shows the cumulative biogas production based on the mass of substrate initially fed in into the reactor. A similar value was obtained for both experiments, although a significant reduction in the lag phase experienced by the second reactor was observed (see Table 1). Although, in this case only half of the biomass was being treated, thus reducing the capacity of the reactor. The addition of digestate as inoculum resulted in similar values of the specific methane production.

, Cumulative Lbiogas/KgST

160 140 120 100 80 60 40 20 0 0 10 20 30 40 50

Biogas composition Solid fraction (initial and final)

TS, VS
Liquid fraction

Solid fraction
(Substrates + straw)

Time (days) R1 R2 GR1 GR2

Figure2. Cumulative biogas production

Kinetic analysis Final cumulative biogas produced was fitted to the modified Gompertz equation (1) (Schnute, 1981; Zwietering et al., 1990) which is a suitable model for describing the process of cumulative biogas production in batch experiments (Sung and Liu, 2003; Buenda et al., 2009; Zhu et a., 2009):

Table1. Gompertz kinetic parameters of batch digestion systems.

System R1 R2

Rmax (ml d-1 ST-1) 0.98476 1.0726

(d) 6.96 0.7975

R2 0.981 0.991

P(t ) Pmax . exp

exp

Rmax .e ( t ) 1 Pmax

(1)

where P(t) is the cumulative biogas production (l); Pmax is the biogas production potential (l), Rmax is the maximum biogas production rate (l/d), is lag-phase time (d) and e is 2.718. Data analysis was performed using Origin 6.1 software.

Conclusions

Batch-dry AD was successfully performed using either anaerobic sludge of stabilized manure as inoculum. Digestion time per unit of mass fed in into the reactor was similar and no improvement was observed from substituting liquid inoculation from solid inoculation, since the space occupied by the digestate resulted in lower capacity of treatment.
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