Use of ADM1 To Evaluate Anaerobic Digestion of Food Waste

摘要

Anaerobic digestion and biomethane production is a promising method for management of foodwastes from military establishments and other institutions. We have found over 80% conversionof food waste from the United States Air Force Academy (USAFA) to biomethane in labanaerobic digesters. Of concern for successful field digester operation is the effect of operatingmethods and loading conditions on digester stability. Dynamic simulation modeling provides auseful tool to evaluate transient loadings and operating conditions that can lead to unstableoperation with volatile fatty acid accumulation, pH drop, and decreased methane production. TheInternational Water Association anaerobic digester model 1 (ADM1) was incorporated intoMathcad15 software to provide a useful tool to evaluate digester design and performance. Themodel was calibrated from operating data from two parallel lab digesters. Batch bottle tests werealso done with spiked feeds to digesters to evaluate food waste hydrolysis kinetics. Modelmodifications were done to facilitate the calibration of hydrolysis kinetics, to provide moreaccurate alkalinity and ammonia production predictions, to allow stable model runs undertransient conditions, and to account of the biomass debris composition from endogenous decay.