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Effect of Oil Content on Biogas Production, Process Performance and Stability of Food Waste Anaerobic Digestion

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Abstract

The primary cause of anaerobic digester failure includes accumulation of inhibitory substances and intermediate products such as volatile fatty acids (VFAs), free ammonia (NH3 +), and ammonium (NH4 +). They (except VFAs) are however required as essential nutrients for bacteria growth. The current study specifically investigated the effect of oil content on the biogas production and the stability of anaerobic digestion of food waste. Two lab scale reactors were designed with different organic loading rates and feeding adjustment of used oil addition to testing the effects of lipids on biodegradation and biogas production. The results indicate that, at 2.0 g VS L−1 d−1, the addition of oil (5% v/v), caused the reactor failure, whereas, at 4.0 g VS L−1 d−1, the reactor remained stable for 10 days before the accumulation of VFAs, which resulted in low pH, and thus reduced the biogas and methane production. The addition of NaOH to reactivate the reactors can only improve pH, alkalinity and negatively increased viscosity, but there was no significant effect on biogas production and VFAs concentration. An effective solution to reactivate the reactors was achieved by recirculating 50% of both reactor’s effluent back to the reactors. This resulted in biogas recovery and stable process performance of the reactors. Surprisingly, NH4 +–N remained stable (1400 mg L−1) throughout the period, far less than the critical concentration of 3000 mg L−1. On the contrary, the low NH4 +–N couldn’t contribute to buffering the reactor’s high VFA concentration during the unstable period, thereby raising new questions on its roles in anaerobic digestion process.

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Acknowledgements

The first author acknowledges the support from School of Civil Engineering, University College Dublin; Tuition scholarship support from Student Universal Support Ireland (SUSI); Centre RAPSODEE, Campus Jarlard, Albi, F-81013 Cedex 09, France and China Agricultural University, Key Laboratory of Clean Utilization Technology for Renewable Energy, Ministry of Agriculture. The author gratefully acknowledges colleagues and supervisor’s contributions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. UCD Dooge Centre for Water Resources Research, School of Civil Engineering, University College Dublin, Newstead, Belfield, Dublin 4, Ireland

    Olumide Wesley Awe & Yaqian Zhao

  2. Key Laboratory for Clean Renewable Energy Utilization Technology of Ministry of Agriculture, College of Engineering, China Agricultural University, Beijing, 100083, People’s Republic of China

    Olumide Wesley Awe, Jiaxin Lu & Shubiao Wu

  3. Université de Toulouse, Mines Albi, CNRS UMR 5302, Centre RAPSODEE, Campus Jarlard, 81013, Albi Cedex 09, France

    Olumide Wesley Awe, Ange Nzihou, Nathalie Lyczko & Doan Pham Minh

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Awe, O.W., Lu, J., Wu, S. et al. Effect of Oil Content on Biogas Production, Process Performance and Stability of Food Waste Anaerobic Digestion. Waste Biomass Valor 9, 2295–2306 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12649-017-0179-4

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