Intermediate-scale high-solids anaerobic digestion system operational development.

摘要

Anaerobic bioconversion of solid organic wastes represents a disposal option in which two useful products may be produced, including a medium Btu fuel gas (biogas) and a compost-quality organic residue. The application of high-solids technology may offer several advantages over conventional low-solids digester technology. Operation of the anaerobic digestion process at high solids reduces the level of process water and thereby the size and capital costs for the digester system. In addition, by virtue of the lack of available water, the microbial catalysts are more productive in feedstock polymer hydrolysis. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has developed a unique digester system capable of uniformly mixing high-solids materials at low cost. Information gained from laboratory-scale digester research was used to develop die intermediate-scale digester system. This system represents a 50-fold scale-up of the original digester system and includes continuous feed addition and computer monitoring and control. During the first 1.15 years of operation, a variety of modifications and improvements were instituted to increase the safety, reliability, and performance of the system. Those improvements -- which may be critical in further scale-up efforts using the NREL high-solids digester design -- are detailed in this report.