Premium
Estimation of Methane Yields in Continuous Biogas Reactors Using Kinetic and Mass Flow Models
Author(s) -
Ward Alastair James,
Feng Lu,
Moset Veronica,
Moller Henrik Bjarne
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
chemical engineering and technology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.403
H-Index - 81
eISSN - 1521-4125
pISSN - 0930-7516
DOI - 10.1002/ceat.201700497
Subject(s) - biogas , yield (engineering) , anaerobic digestion , methane , continuous flow , batch processing , process (computing) , substrate (aquarium) , chemistry , process engineering , plug flow , biological system , pulp and paper industry , thermodynamics , waste management , biochemical engineering , computer science , engineering , physics , biology , organic chemistry , ecology , operating system , programming language
The measurement of methane potential during anaerobic digestion has generally been accomplished through batch assays. Yet, the majority of industrial plants employ a semi‐continuous feeding regime and the estimation of continuous process yield from batch data is not straightforward due to differences in kinetic rates. A simple method is examined whereby batch assays were set up with very high inoculum‐to‐substrate ratios (I:S) and the results applied to a model of mass flow through a continuous process. The results demonstrate that high I:S batch assays estimated the continuous process yield to within 2.5 % of the measured value.