Assessment of a full-scale solid-state anaerobic co-digestion: A multi-component substrate analysis by using ORWARE

• Published in: Waste management (Elmsford) Vol. 146; pp. 36 - 43
• Main Authors: Carlos-Pinedo, Sandra, Wang, Zhao
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Elsevier Ltd 01-06-2022
• Subjects: Digestate; Full-scale; Horse manure; Modelling; Solid-state co-digestion; Digestate; Horse manure; Modelling; Full-scale; Solid-state co-digestion
• ISSN: 0956-053X; 1879-2456; 1879-2456
• DOI: 10.1016/j.wasman.2022.04.042

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•Influence of multi-component substrate on a full-scale solid-state AD is studied.•Studying substrates elemental composition is crucial to understand an AD efficiency.•Replacing green waste by horse manure gives higher energy turnover and nutrients.•Non-separated digestate shows agreement with regulation and less electricity usage.
Long-term sustainable biogas production requires different raw material alternatives, especially when reducing the most desirable organic substrate, food waste, which has been set as a goal in the 2030 Agenda. In Sweden, horse manure (HM) is generated in large quantities, and due to its physical and chemical characteristics, it has the potential to be used as a raw material to produce biogas through anaerobic digestion (AD). In order to investigate the challenges that HM digestion can impose in terms of methane yield and/or digestate quality, the modified ORganic WAste REsearch (ORWARE) AD model was applied. The aim was to study the effects of different substrates and combinations of these on the AD process during a full-scale solid-state (SS)-AD. In this sense, the model allows for the analysis of the digestion process of multicomponent substrates at the element level. The simulation results suggested that the replacement of green waste (GW) by HM with wood chips as bedding material gave the best improvement in terms of energy turnover; the liquid fraction of the digestate of this mixture of substrates presented the highest concentration in all the nutrients analyzed, specifically in total carbon-biological and phosphorus. The nutrient concentrations in the digestate from the aforementioned scenario are in line with the SPCR120 certification.