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

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.

Study of the digestion process at a full-scale solid-state biogas plant by using ORWARE: Model modification and implementation.

The configuration of the reactor influences the digestion process and thus the product yields; other factors such as the rate of biogas production or biogas loss also affect the process specifically with high solid configuration. With these in mind, the ORganic WAste REsearch (ORWARE) anaerobic digestion sub-model was modified to be able to study solid-state anaerobic digestion (SS-AD) (using plug-flow reactor). The simulation results from the updated model agreed with the operational data with respect to methane yield, digestate yield and energy turnover.