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Pre-dimensioning of Small-Scale Anaerobic Reactors of Food Waste Through Biochemical Methane Potential Assays and Kinetic Models

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Abstract

The potential for obtaining renewable energy from organic substrates such as food waste (FW) and biowaste has generated increasing interest in the anaerobic digestion process. Kinetic models are used to analyse the impact of different parameters on biological processes and thus, to optimize them to achieve and to increase the quality and quantity of biogas. This study presents an approximation of the pre-dimensioning of semi-continuous anaerobic reactors treating FW, based on: (i) biochemical methane potential (BMP) assays, in different conditions of substrate-inoculum ratio (S/I: 0.5 and 4.0 g volatile solid-VSsubstrate·g VSinoculum−1) and nutrients (with macro-nutrients (N and P) and micronutrients, only micronutrients (Ni, Co, Mo and Fe) and without nutrients), and (ii) the kinetic performance through three kinetic models (transfer function-TF, logistic function-LF and modified Gompertz-MG), using Pmax (maximum methane production) and Rmax (maximum rate of methane production) as kinetic parameters related to the hydraulic retention time. The best S/I ratios were below 1.0 gVSsubstrate·gVSinoculum−1 with nutrients. Although the three kinetic models obtained a good fit (R2 > 0.9 and RMSE < 15), the TF model overestimated methane production, due to its high sensitivity for the kinetic parameters, which can lead to oversizing in reactor design.

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modified from Vögeli et al. [27]

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Acknowledgements

The authors express their gratitude to the Universidad del Valle for the financing of the project CI 21118 and to COLCIENCIAS for the financing of Brayan A. Parra-Orobio as a national doctoral fellow, Call 617—2013 –Second Court.

Funding

This work was supported by the Universidad del Valle CI-21118.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Engineering, Study and Control of Environmental Pollution – ECCA Research Group, Universidad del Valle, Calle 13 #100-00, Cali, Colombia

    Brayan Alexis Parra-Orobio & Patricia Torres-Lozada

  2. Cetaqua, Centro Tecnológico del Agua, Los Pozos 7340, Santiago de Chile, Chile

    Andrés Donoso-Bravo

  3. Departamento de Ingeniería Química y Ambiental, Universidad Técnica Federico Santa María, Avenida Vicuña Mackenna 3939, Santiago de Chile, Chile

    Andrés Donoso-Bravo

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  1. Brayan Alexis Parra-Orobio
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Contributions

B. A. Parra-Orobio (BAPO), A. Donoso-Bravo (ADB) and P. Torres-Lozada (PTL) were responsible for the conceptualization and design of the study. BAPO and PTL worked in the acquisition and interpretation of data through field and laboratory work. BAPO drafted the article and ADB and PTL revised it critically. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Brayan Alexis Parra-Orobio.

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Parra-Orobio, B.A., Donoso-Bravo, A. & Torres-Lozada, P. Pre-dimensioning of Small-Scale Anaerobic Reactors of Food Waste Through Biochemical Methane Potential Assays and Kinetic Models. Bioenerg. Res. 15, 573–588 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12155-021-10291-3

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