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Evaluating the biogas potential of the dry fraction from pretreatment of food waste from households.

Author

Summary, in English

At the waste handling company NSR, Helsingborg, Sweden, the food waste fraction of source separated municipal solid waste is pretreated to obtain a liquid fraction, which is used for biogas production, and a dry fraction, which is at present incinerated. This pretreatment and separation is performed to remove impurities, however also some of the organic material is removed. The possibility of realising the methane potential of the dry fraction through batch-wise dry anaerobic digestion was investigated. The anaerobic digestion technique used was a two-stage process consisting of a static leach bed reactor and a methane reactor. Treatment of the dry fraction alone and in a mixture with structural material was tested to investigate the effect on the porosity of the leach bed. A tracer experiment was carried out to investigate the liquid flow through the leach beds, and this method proved useful in demonstrating a more homogenous flow through the leach bed when structural material was added. Addition of structural material to the dry fraction was needed to achieve a functional digestion process. A methane yield of 98m(3)/ton was obtained from the dry fraction mixed with structural material after 76days of digestion. This was in the same range as obtained in the laboratory scale biochemical methane potential test, showing that it was possible to extract the organic content in the dry fraction in this type of dry digestion system for the production of methane.

Publishing year

2013

Language

English

Pages

1282-1289

Publication/Series

Waste Management: international journal of integrated waste management, science and technology

Volume

33

Issue

5

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

Elsevier

Topic

  • Energy Systems
  • Industrial Biotechnology

Status

Published

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 1879-2456