Biogas recovery from waste organic materials: a comparative experimental study

Full text: Biogas production from organic waste is already traditional method for treatment of agricultural waste with simultaneous energy recovery in the form of biogas. However, biogas can also be produced efficiently treating organic waste from beverage industries and biodiesel production. In the latter case, huge amounts of crude glycerol are released posing severe problems with their treatment. The main obstacle to the efficient waste treatment by anaerobic digestion is the sensitivity of the methanogenic bacteria toward pH variations. When the digester is overloaded, high concentrations of organic acids are produced damping the activity of methanogenes. This problem can be overcome by separating the digester into different compartments, enabling the development of the consecutive processes of hydrolysis, acidogenesis and methanogenesis in different spaces.; In the present study results of biogas production from poultry litter, stillage from ethanol production, and crude glycerol from biodiesel manufacturing are presented. The experiments were carried out in a continuous baffled anaerobic reactor. It was established that the process with glycerol utilization was too sensitive toward the loading because of intensive acid formation as intermediates. The process with stillage as substrate was stable and well steered for months with very high biogas yield (350 I/kg COD) at high production rate, i.e. up to 4 wd'. The microbial profiles, the pH values and the intermediate concentrations along the reactor were determined and correlated with the biogas yield. Different microbial strains and profiles for the different substrates were observed. In the case of glycerol digestion, almost one bacterial genus, i.e. Klebsiella sp., was detected besides the methanogenes, which enables to make speculations about the pathway of competitive intermediate, biogas, and final products formation