Improving the energy balance of grass-based anaerobic digestion through combined harvesting and pretreatment.

An important challenge that has to be addressed to achieve sustainable anaerobic digestion of lignocellulosic substrates is the development of energy and cost efficient pretreatment methods. Technologies orientated to simultaneously harvest and mechanically pretreat the biomass at the field could meet these criteria as they can potentially reduce the energy losses. The objective of this study was to elucidate the effect of two full-scale harvesting machines to enhance the biogas production and subsequently, improve energy balance. The performances of Disc-mower and Excoriator were assessed on meadow and cultivated grass silages. The results showed that relatively high methane production can be achieved from meadow and cultivated grass harvested in different seasons. The findings indicated that the bioenergy production can be improved based on the selection of the appropriate harvesting technology. More specifically, Excoriator, which cuts and subsequently applies shearing forces on harvested biomass, enhanced the methane production up to 10% and the overall energy budget was improved proportionally to the driving speed increase.

Anaerobic digestion foaming in full-scale biogas plants: a survey on causes and solutions.

Anaerobic digestion foaming is a common operation problem in biogas plants with negative impacts on the biogas plants economy and environment. A survey of 16 Danish full-scale biogas plants on foaming problems revealed that most of them had experienced foaming in their processes up to three times per year. Foaming incidents often lasted from one day to three weeks, causing 20-50% biogas production loss. One foaming case at Lemvig biogas plant has been investigated and the results indicated that the combination of feedstock composition and mixing pattern of the reactor was the main cause of foaming in this case. Moreover, no difference in bacterial communities between the foaming and non-foaming reactors was observed, showing that filamentous bacteria were not the main reason for foaming in this case.

Pilot-scale application of an online VFA sensor for monitoring and control of a manure digester.

A volatile fatty acids (VFA) sensor based on headspace chromatography was tested for online monitoring and control of a pilot-scale manure digester. The sensor showed satisfying results in terms of sensitivity and reliability for monitoring of the digester. The online VFA and biogas production data were used for automatic control of the digester based on feed flow manipulation. The control approach was based on optimization of biogas production while using VFA concentration as the alarm threshold. A rule-based supervisory system with a cascade controller was used to optimize the biogas production from the digester. The alarm state was set at 40 mM total VFA and 10 mM propionate concentration. The control algorithms could successfully maximize the biogas production without overloading the process. However, as the algorithm was based on a fixed biogas yield parameter and only used the biogas parameter for optimization, it could not distinguish between the decreases of biogas production from inhibition and from lower organic content in the substrate, which resulted in undesired decreasing of the control gas setpoint when the substrate was diluted. It was necessary to adjust the yield parameter in order to get this control approach to function properly, which is not suitable for the full-scale biogas plant where the organic content of waste streams can vary. An alternative approach could be a modified rule-based algorithm that includes VFA parameters to help distinguish between different process scenarios.

Effect of substrates and intermediate compounds on foaming in manure digestion systems.

Manure contains several compounds that can potentially cause foaming during anaerobic digestion. Understanding the effect of substrates and intermediate compounds on foaming tendency and stability could facilitate strategies for foaming prevention and recovery of the process. In this study, the effect of physicochemical properties of substrates and intermediate compounds on liquid properties such as surface tension, surfactant property, and hydrophobicity were investigated and compared with the effect on foaming tendency and foam stability. The results showed that there was no consistent correlation between foaming potential and hydrophobicity, oil displacement area (ODA) or surface tension of the tested solutions, and the best way to determine the foaming property of the solution was to directly measure foaming tendency and foam stability. Na-oleate and acetic acid showed the highest potential to create foam in a manure digester. Moreover, high organic loading of lipids and protein, and high concentrations of acetic and butyric acids also showed a strong tendency to create foaming during anaerobic digestion. Due to their great ability to stabilize foam, high organic loadings of Na-oleate or gelatine were considered to be the main potential foaming problem.

Effects of organic loading rate and hydraulic retention time on bioaugmentation performance to tackle ammonia inhibition in anaerobic digestion.

Three continuously stirred-tank reactors fed with manure operating under high ammonia levels (5.0 g NH3-N L-1) and with increased organic loading rate (OLR), (2.09 R1, 3.02 R2 and 4.0 R3 g VS L-1 d-1), achieved through glucose amendment in R2 and R3, were inoculated with an ammonia-acclimatized microbial culture. Successful bioaugmentation was endured only in R2 and R3, both reactors characterized by high OLR, resulting in 19.6 and 24.5% increase in methane production, respectively. The high OLRs in these reactors favored the co-occurrence of the hydrogenotrophic (Methanobacteriaceae), methylotrophic (Methanomethylophilaceae) and aceticlastic methanogenic pathways. The latter was supported by the successful establishment of ammonium-tolerant Methanosarcina, prevailing in the inoculum. Oppositely in R1, the low OLR prevented the establishment of Methanosarcina, leading to an exclusive hydrogenotrophic methanogenesis and reduced methane production. HRT shortening resulted in limited effect on biomethane performance, indicating a well establishment of the introduced bioaugmentation culture in the reactors.

Ammonia-induced inhibition of manure-based continuous biomethanation process under different organic loading rates and associated microbial community dynamics.

Three Continuously Stirred Tank Reactors (CTSRs) were operating at steady state conditions with Organic Loading Rates (OLR) of 2.09, 3.024 and 4.0 g VS L-1 d-1. Glucose was used as the sole factor for increasing the OLR, linking the increase of the OLR with the C/N ratio increase. The reactors were stressed by increasing the ammonia concentration to 5 g L-1 from 1.862 g L-1. The results showed elevating inhibition of the anaerobic process by increasing the C/N ratio just by increasing the OLR, under the high ammonia concentration. A different response of the bacterial and archaeal community under ammonia stressed conditions was also observed. Under the high ammonia concentration, hydrogen-depended methylotrophic was the dominant methanogenesis route at OLR of 2.09 g VS L-1d-1, while the hydrogenotrophic route was the dominant at the high OLR of 4 g VS L-1d-1, which coincided with high acetate and propionate concentrations.

Biological CO2 fixation in up-flow reactors via exogenous H2 addition.

Gas fermentation for the production of building block molecules and biofuels is lately gaining attention as a means to eliminate the greenhouse gases emissions. Especially CO2 capture and recycling are in focus. Thus, the biological coupling of CO2 and H2 is of high interest. Therefore, the focus of the present work was to evaluate the performances of two up-flow reactors for CO2 and H2 assimilation. Process monitoring showed that the gas-liquid H2 transfer was highly affected by reactor design. A reactor filled with Raschig rings could lift up gases utilization leading to a CH4 content of 81% at 6 h gas retention time and 8.8 L/LR.h gas recirculation rate. In contrast, limited biomethanation was achieved in the absence of Raschig rings highlighting the positive role of packing material to the performance of up-flow-reactors. Additionally, high-throughput 16S rRNA sequencing revealed that the microbial community was ultimately resided by Methanothermobacter methanogens.

A strict anaerobic extreme thermophilic hydrogen-producing culture enriched from digested household waste.

AIMS: The aim of this study was to enrich, characterize and identify strict anaerobic extreme thermophilic hydrogen (H(2)) producers from digested household solid wastes. METHODS AND RESULTS: A strict anaerobic extreme thermophilic H(2) producing bacterial culture was enriched from a lab-scale digester treating household wastes at 70 degrees C. The enriched mixed culture consisted of two rod-shaped bacterial members growing at an optimal temperature of 80 degrees C and an optimal pH 8.1. The culture was able to utilize glucose, galactose, mannose, xylose, arabinose, maltose, sucrose, pyruvate and glycerol as carbon sources. Growth on glucose produced acetate, H(2) and carbon dioxide. Maximal H(2) production rate on glucose was 1.1 mmol l(-1) h(-1) with a maximum H(2) yield of 1.9 mole H(2) per mole glucose. 16S ribosomal DNA clone library analyses showed that the culture members were phylogenetically affiliated to the genera Bacillus and Clostridium. Relative abundance of the culture members, assessed by fluorescence in situ hybridization, were 87 +/- 5% and 13 +/- 5% for Bacillus and Clostridium, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: An extreme thermophilic, strict anaerobic, mixed microbial culture with H(2)-producing potential was enriched from digested household wastes. SIGNIFICANCE AND IMPACT OF THE STUDY: This study provided a culture with a potential to be applied in reactor systems for extreme thermophilic H(2) production from complex organic wastes.

Defining the biomethane potential (BMP) of solid organic wastes and energy crops: a proposed protocol for batch assays.

The application of anaerobic digestion technology is growing worldwide because of its economic and environmental benefits. As a consequence, a number of studies and research activities dealing with the determination of the biogas potential of solid organic substrates have been carrying out in the recent years. Therefore, it is of particular importance to define a protocol for the determination of the ultimate methane potential for a given solid substrates. In fact, this parameter determines, to a certain extent, both design and economic details of a biogas plant. Furthermore, the definition of common units to be used in anaerobic assays is increasingly requested from the scientific and engineering community. This paper presents some guidelines for biomethane potential assays prepared by the Task Group for the Anaerobic Biodegradation, Activity and Inhibition Assays of the Anaerobic Digestion Specialist Group of the International Water Association. This is the first step for the definition of a standard protocol.

Innovative process scheme for removal of organic matter, phosphorus and nitrogen from pig manure.

Disposal of pig manure often requires treatment with respect to environmental legislations. In this study different processes for reduction of the organic matter (anaerobic digestion, effluent separation by decanter centrifugation, membrane microfiltration, post-digestion in upflow anaerobic sludge blanket (UASB) reactor, partial oxidation), nitrogen (oxygen-limited autotrophic nitrification-denitrification, OLAND) and phosphorus (phosphorus removal by precipitation as struvite, PRS) from pig manure were tested. Results obtained showed that microfiltration was unsuitable for pig manure treatment. PRS treated effluent was negatively affecting the further processing of the pig manure in UASB, and was therefore not included in the final process flow scheme. In a final scheme (PIGMAN concept) combination of the following successive process steps was used: thermophilic anaerobic digestion with sequential separation by decanter centrifuge, post-digestion in UASB reactor, partial oxidation and finally OLAND process. This combination resulted in reduction of the total organic, nitrogen and phosphorus contents by 96%, 88%, and 81%, respectively.

Influence of wastewater characteristics on methane potential in food-processing industry wastewaters.

In this study, we identified the influence of wastewater characteristics on the theoretical and practical methane potential using different food industrial wastewaters as substrates. Ten composite wastewater samples from five industries were investigated. The ultimate practical methane yields (B(o)) were compared to the theoretical methane yields (B(o,th)) in order to evaluate the biodegradability of the tested wastewaters and the influence of their physico-chemical characteristics. The analytical method applied to quantify the wastewaters' organic content proved to influence the estimation of their theoretical yields. The substrate:inoculum ratio as well as the dilution factor of the wastewaters influenced the ultimate practical methane yields differently in each of the wastewaters assessed. Substrate chemical oxygen demand (COD) concentrations did not present any influence on ultimate practical methane yields; on the other hand, it was found that they were affected positively by concentrations of total inorganic carbon when wastewaters were 25% and 50% diluted and affected negatively by concentrations of total acetate when wastewaters were undiluted. Carbohydrate and protein concentrations affected negatively the maximum achieved practical methane yields.

Effect of temperature and active biogas process on passive separation of digested manure.

The objective of the study was to identify the optimum time interval for effluent removal after temporarily stopping stirring in otherwise continuously stirred tank reactors. Influence of temperature (10 and 55 degrees C) and active biogas process on passive separation of digested manure, where no outside mechanical or chemical action was used, within the reactor was studied in three vertical settling columns (100 cm deep). Variations in solids and microbial distribution at top, middle and bottom layers of column were assessed over a 15 day settling period. Results showed that best solids separation was achieved when digested manure was allowed to settle at 55 degrees C with active biogas process (pre-incubated at 55 degrees C) compared to separation at 55 degrees C without active biogas process (autoclaved at 120 degrees C, for 20 min) or at 10 degrees C with active biogas process. Maximum solids separation was noticed 24h after settling in column incubated at 55 degrees C, with active biogas process. Microbiological analyses revealed that proportion of Archaea and Bacteria, absent in the autoclaved material, varied with incubation temperature, time and sampling depth. Short rod shaped bacteria dominated at 55 degrees C, while long rod shaped bacteria dominated at 10 degrees C. Methanosarcinaceae were seen more abundant in the surface layer at 55 degrees C while it was seen more common in the top and bottom layers at 10 degrees C. Thus, passive separation of digester contents within the reactor can be used effectively as an operating strategy to optimize biogas production by increasing the solids and biomass retention times. A minimum of 1-2h "non-stirring" period appears to be optimal time before effluent removal in plants where extraction is batch-wise 2-4 times a day.

Codigestion of manure and industrial organic waste at centralized biogas plants: process imbalances and limitations.

The present study focuses on process imbalances in Danish centralized biogas plants treating manure in combination with industrial waste. Collection of process data from various full-scale plants along with a number of interviews showed that imbalances occur frequently. High concentrations of ammonia or long chain fatty acids is in most cases expected to be the cause of microbial inhibitions/imbalances while foaming in the prestorage tanks and digesters is the most important practical process problem at the plants. A correlation between increased residual biogas production (suboptimal process conditions) and high fractions of industrial waste in the feedstock was also observed. The process imbalances and suboptimal conditions are mainly allowed to occur due to 1) inadequate knowledge about the waste composition, 2) inadequate knowledge about the waste degradation characteristics, 3) inadequate process surveillance, especially with regard to volatile fatty acids, and 4) insufficient pre-storage capacity causing inexpedient mixing and hindering exact dosing of the different waste products.

Two-year microbial adaptation during hydrogen-mediated biogas upgrading process in a serial reactor configuration.

Microbial dynamics in an upgrading biogas reactor system undergoing a more than two years-period at stable operating conditions were explored. The carbon dioxide generated during biomass degradation in the first reactor of the system was converted to methane into the secondary reactor by addition of external hydrogen. Considering the overall efficiency, the long-term operation period resulted in an improved biogas upgrading performance (99% methane content). However, a remarkable accumulation of acetate was revealed, indicating the enhancement of homoacetogenic activity. For this reason, a shift in the anaerobic digestion microbiome was expected and evaluated by 16S rRNA amplicon analysis. Results demonstrated that the most abundant archaeal species identified in the first time point, Candidatus Methanoculleus thermohydrogenotrophicum, was replaced by Methanothermobacter thermautotrophicus, becoming dominant after the community adaptation. The most interesting taxonomic units were clustered by relative abundance and six main long-term adaptation trends were found, characterizing functionally related microbes (e.g. homoacetogens).

Effect of micro-aeration and inoculum type on the biodegradation of lignocellulosic substrate.

The effect of various micro-aeration strategies on the anaerobic digestion (AD) of wheat straw was thoroughly examined using a mixture of inocula, containing compost and well digested sludge from biogas plant. The aim was to determine the most efficient oxygen load, pulse repetition and treatment duration, resulting in the highest methane production. The oxygen load had the largest impact on the biodegradability of straw, among the examined variables. More specifically, a micro-aeration intensity of 10mLO2/gVS was identified as the critical threshold above which the AD performance was more susceptible to instability. The highest enhancement in biogas production was achieved by injecting 5mLO2/gVS for a consecutive 3-day treatment period, presenting a 7.2% increase compared to the untreated wheat straw. Nevertheless, the results from optimisation case study indicated a higher increase of 9% by injecting 7.3mLO2/gVS, distributed in 2 pulses during a slightly shorter treatment period (i.e. 47h).

Bioaugmentation with hydrolytic microbes to improve the anaerobic biodegradability of lignocellulosic agricultural residues.

Bioaugmentation with hydrolytic microbes was applied to improve the methane yield of bioreactors fed with agricultural wastes. The efficiency of Clostridium thermocellum and Melioribacter roseus to degrade lignocellulosic matter was evaluated in batch and continuously stirred tank reactors (CSTRs). Results from batch assays showed that C. thermocellum enhanced the methane yield by 34%. A similar increase was recorded in CSTR during the bioaugmentation period; however, at steady-state the effect was noticeably lower (7.5%). In contrast, the bioaugmentation with M. roseus did not promote markedly the anaerobic biodegradability, as the methane yield was increased up to 10% in batch and no effect was shown in CSTR. High-throughput 16S rRNA amplicon sequencing was used to assess the effect of bioaugmentation strategies on bacterial and archaeal populations. The microbial analysis revealed that both strains were not markedly resided into biogas microbiome. Additionally, the applied strategies did not alter significantly the microbial communities.

Enhanced biogas recovery by applying post-digestion in large-scale centralized biogas plants.

The main objective of this study was to investigate the degradation efficiency of centralized biogas plants and provide guidance for the design of more efficient digester and post-digestion systems. These centralized biogas plants in Denmark digest manure together with organic waste from the food industry to generate biogas, which is used for electricity and thermal energy. A total of 20 such plants are currently active in Denmark, most of which were included in the investigation. From the plants, samples were obtained from various steps of the process. Samples were analysed and the residual biogas potential determined by batch post-digestion at various temperature levels. Results were correlated with plant characteristics and production statistics in order to judge the efficiency of various digestion concepts. A simplified model based on a two-step biogas production process was developed and experimental data were used to determine kinetic constants. Experimental results and analysis combined with model simulations showed that the residual biogas potential in the main digestion step effluent is originating mainly from undegraded particulate matter in the biomass. For thermophilic plants 93% of the residual biogas potential was originating from particulate matter and 88% for the mesophilic biogas plants. This indicates that the residual biogas potential is mainly due to insufficient retention time in the main digestion step for hydrolysis of particulate material and that the hydrolysis step is the methane yield limiting factor, while conversion of soluble material such as VFA is the rate limiting factor critical for achieving a stable process.

Identifiability study of the proteins degradation model, based on ADM1, using simultaneous batch experiments.

The objective of the present study is to analyse kinetic and stoichiometric parameter values of gelatine anaerobic degradation at thermophilic range, based on an experiment designed to elucidate if volatile fatty acids (VFA) are inhibitors of the hydrolysis process. Results showed that VFA are not inhibiting the hydrolysis process. The ADM1 model adequately expressed the consecutive steps of hydrolysis and acidogenesis, with estimated kinetic values corresponding to a fast acidogenesis and slower hydrolysis. The hydrolysis was found to be the rate limiting step of anaerobic degradation. Estimation of yield coefficients based on the relative initial slopes of VFA profiles obtained in a simple batch experiment produced satisfactory results. From the identification study, it was concluded that it is possible to determine univocally the related kinetic parameter values for protein degradation if the evolution of amino acids is measured in simultaneous batch experiments, with different initial protein and amino acids concentrations.

Lessons learnt from 15 years of ICA in anaerobic digesters.

Anaerobic digestion plants are highly efficient wastewater treatment processes with inherent energy production. Despite these advantages, many industries are still reluctant to use them because of their instability confronted with changes in operating conditions. There is therefore great potential for application of instrumentation, control and automation (ICA) in the field of anaerobic digestion. This paper will discuss the requirements (in terms of on-line sensors needed, modelling efforts and mathematical complexity) but also the advantages and drawbacks of different control strategies that have been applied to AD high rate processes over the last 15 years.