Investigation of factors affecting on the anaerobic degradation of organic waste

Abstract

Although anaerobic degradation reactions of organic waste are feasible, and have been studied since 1990. However, until now, optimizing the reaction rate to get the highest methane yield is still needed. Therefore, it is necessary to optimize the operational parameters. The goal of this study is to investigate the impacts of temperature, ratio of solid waste and innoculum, and total solid percentage to the anaerobic degradation reactions. Solid waste was the mixture of water hyacinth (representative of plant components in the organic waste stream) and cow manure (ratio of water hyacinth: cow manure = 2:1). The mixture was composted until getting a homogenous texture in order to facilitate for the anaerobic digestion process. Two temperature conditions (55 oC and 37 oC), three solid wasteinoculum (S:I) ratios (1:2, 2:1, 1:1) and five percentages of total solid (30 %, 24 %, 18 %, 14 %, 10 %) were investigated. The result indicated that in the thermophilic condition (55 oC), 24 % TS, and S:I ratio of 1:2, the reactor generated the highest methane yield after 30 days.