Abstract
The temperature is the essential factor that influences the efficiency of anaerobic reactors. During the operation of the anaerobic reactor, the fluctuations of ambient temperature can cause a change in the internal temperature of the reactor. Therefore, insulation and heating measures are often used to maintain anaerobic reactor’s internal temperature. In this paper, a simplified heat transfer model was developed to study heat transfer between cylindrical anaerobic reactors and their surroundings. Three cylindrical reactors of different sizes were studied, and the internal relations between ambient temperature, thickness of insulation, and temperature fluctuations of the reactors were obtained at different reactor sizes. The model was calibrated by a sensitivity analysis, and the calibrated model was well able to predict reactor temperature. The Nash-Sutcliffe model efficiency coefficient was used to assess the predictive power of heat transfer models. The Nash coefficients of the three reactors were 0.76, 0.60, and 0.45, respectively. The model can provide reference for the thermal insulation design of cylindrical anaerobic reactors.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Alvarez R, Liden G (2008) The effect of temperature variation on biomethanation at high altitude. Bioresour Technol 99:7278–7284
Appels L, Baeyens J, Degrève J, Dewil R (2008) Principles and potential of the anaerobic digestion of waste-activated sludge. Prog Energy Combust Sci 34:755–781
Chen YR, Hashimoto AG (1979) Kinetics of methane fermentation. Biotechnol Bioeng Symp 8:269–282
Cheng YC, Li H, Zhang YY (2015) Influence of total solid content on thermal physical properties of sewage sludge. Sichuan Environ 36(6):1–4 (in Chinese)
Choi S, Krarti M (1997) Heat transfer for slab-on-grade floors with prescribed heat flux. J Solar Energy Eng 119:273–278
Datta A (2002) Biological and environmental heat and mass transfer. Marcel Dekker, Inc, New York
Dürrenmatt DJ, Wanner O (2014) A mathematical model to predict the effect of heat recovery on the wastewater temperature in sewers. Water Res 48:548–558
El-Mashad HM, Zeeman G, van Loon WKP, Gerard PAB, Lettinga G (2004) Effect of temperature and temperature fluctuation on thermophilic anaerobic digestion of cattle manure. Bioresour Technol 95(2):191–201
Espinosa-Solares T, Valle-Guadarrama S, Bombardiere J, Domaschko M, Easter M (2009) Effect of heating strategy on power consumption and performance of a pilot plant anaerobic digester. Appl Biochem Biotechnol 156:35–44
Fantozzi F, Buratti C (2009) Biogas production from different substrates in an experimental continuously stirred tank reactor anaerobic digester. Bioresour Technol 100(23):5783–5789
Gebremedhin KG, Wu B, Gooch C, Wright P, Inglis S (2005) Heat transfer model for plug-flow anaerobic digesters. Trans Asae 48:777–785
Gomec CY (2010) High-rate anaerobic treatment of domestic wastewater at ambient operating temperatures: a review on benefits and drawbacks. J Environ Sci Health A 45:1169–1184. doi:10.1080/10934529.2010.493774
Hagentoft CE (1988) Heat loss to the ground from a building. Doctoral Dissertation. Lund University of Technology, Sweden
Hulshoff Pol LW (1989) The phenomenon of granulation of anaerobic sludge, Ph. D. Thesis. The Netherlands: WAU, 1989
Incropera FP, DeWitt DP, Bergman TL, Lavine AS (2011) Fundamentals of heat and mass transfer. John Wiley & Sons, Hoboken, NJ
Kays WM, Crawford ME, Weigand B (1993) Convective heat and mass transfer. Tata McGraw-Hill Education
Kishore VVN (1989) A heat-transfer analysis of fixed-dome biogas plants. Biol Wastes 30:199–215
Liu JY, Chen ZX, Li WT (2012) Development and verification of one-dimensional model of steady-state heat transfer for anaerobic fermentation reactor. Trans Chin Soc Agric Eng 28:217–222 (in Chinese)
Merlin G, Kohler F, Bouvier M, Lissolo T, Boileau H (2012) Importance of heat transfer in an anaerobic digestion plant in a continental climate context. Bioresour Technol 124:59–67
Moriasi DN, Arnold JG, Van Liew MW, Bingner RL, Harmel RD, Veith TL (2007) Model evaluation guidelines for systematic quantification of accuracy in watershed simulations. Trans ASABE 50(3):885–900
Palatsi J, Gimenez-Lorang A, Ferrer I, Flotats X (2009) Start-up strategies of thermophilic anaerobic digestion of sewage sludge. Water Sci Technol 59(9):1777–1784
Perrigault T, Weatherford V, Martí-Herrero J, Poggio D (2012) Towards thermal design optimization of tubular digesters in cold climates: a heat transfer model. Bioresour Technol 124:259–268
Terradas-Ill G, Pham CH, Triolo JM, Martí-Herrero J, Sommer SG (2014) Thermic model to predict biogas production in unheated fixed-dome digesters buried in the ground. Environ Sci Technol 48:3253–3262
Turovskiy IS, Mathai PK (2006) Wastewater sludge processing. Wiley, New York
Van Lier JB (2008) High-rate anaerobic wastewater treatment: diversifying from end-of-the-pipe treatment to resource-oriented conversion techniques. Water Sci Technol 57:1137–1148
Van Lier JB, Martin JLS, Lettinga G (1996) Effect of temperature on the anaerobic thermophilic conversion of volatile fatty acids by dispersed and granular sludge. Water Res 30(1):199–207
Van Lier JB, Rebac S, Lettinga G (1997) High-rate anaerobic wastewater treatment under psychrophilic and thermophilic conditions. Water Sci Technol 35(10):199–206
Weatherford VC, Zhai ZJ (2015) Affordable solar-assisted biogas digesters for cold climates: experiment, model, verification and analysis. Appl Energy 146:209–216
Wilson CA, Murthy SM, Fang Y, Novak JT (2008) The effect of temperature on the performance and stability of thermophilic anaerobic digestion. Water Sci Technol 57(2):297–304
Zhong Z, Braun JE (2007) A simple method for estimating transient heat transfer in slab-on-ground floors. Build Environ 42:1071–1080
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Responsible editor: Bingcai Pan
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Liu, J., Zhou, X., Wu, J. et al. Heat transfer analysis of cylindrical anaerobic reactors with different sizes: a heat transfer model. Environ Sci Pollut Res 24, 23508–23517 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-017-9943-z
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-017-9943-z