Co-Digestion of Napier Grass and Its Silage with Cow Dung for Bio-Hydrogen and Methane Production by

Two-Stage Anaerobic Digestion Process

Anaerobic digestion is a series of biological processes in which microorganisms break down biodegradable
material in the absence of oxygen. One of the end products is biogas, which is combusted to generate
electricity and heat, or can be processed into renewable natural gas and transportation fuels. A range of
anaerobic digestion technologies are converting livestock manure, municipal wastewater solids, food waste,
high strength industrial wastewater and residuals, fats, oils and grease (FOG), and various other organic
waste streams into biogas, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Separated digested solids can be composted,
utilized for dairy bedding, directly applied to cropland or converted into other products. Nutrients in the
liquid stream are used in agriculture as fertilizer.

The Biological Process

The digestion process begins with bacterial hydrolysis of the input
materials in order to break down insoluble organic polymers such as
carbohydrates and make them available for other bacteria. Acidogenic
bacteria then convert the sugars and amino acids into carbon dioxide,
hydrogen, ammonia, and organic acids. Acetogenic bacteria then
convert these resulting organic acids into acetic acid, along with
additional ammonia, hydrogen, and carbon dioxide. Finally,
methanogens convert these products to methane and carbon dioxide.

Digester Technologies
Many different anaerobic digester systems are commercially available.
The following is an overview based on organic waste stream type
(manure, municipal wastewater treatment, industrial wastewater
treatment and municipal solid waste): Manure: Anaerobic digestion systems for livestock manure operate to
reduce methane emissions, odors, pathogens and weed seeds and produce biogas. They fall into four
general categories:

1. Covered anaerobic lagoon digester: Sealed with flexible cover, with methane recovered and piped to
the combustion device. Some systems use a single cell for combined digestion and storage.

2. Plug flow digester: Long, narrow concrete tank with a rigid or flexible cover. The tank is built
partially or fully below grade to limit the demand for supplemental heat. Plug flow digesters are
used at dairy operations that collect manure by scraping.

3. Complete mix digester: Enclosed, heated tank with a mechanical, hydraulic, or gas mixing system.
Complete mix digesters work best when there is some dilution of the excreted manure with water
(e.g., milking center wastewater).

4. Dry Digestion: Upright, silo-style digesters made of concrete and steel with rigid cover. Dry
digesters operate at 20 to 42 percent total solids, which allows them to combine high dry matter
manure and crop residuals with very dilute liquid manures or co-substrates.

Source: http://www.epa.gov/agstar/anaerobic/ad101/anaerobic-digesters.html (diagrams available)

Municipal Wastewater
Wastewater treatment plants employ anaerobic digesters to break down sewage sludge and eliminate
pathogens in wastewater. Technologies available for municipal wastewater fall into tthree general categories
— mesophilic, thermophilic, and temperature-phased systems.

Industrial Wastewater
Food and beverage manufacturing facilities typically generate high strength waste streams as a by-product
of their manufacturing operations. These waste streams are characterized by high Chemical Oxygen Demand
(COD) and solids loading, making them well-suited for treatment using anaerobic processes.

Municipal Solid Waste (MSW)

Anaerobic digestion of the organic fraction of MSW provides an engineered and highly controlled process of
capturing methane, especially when compared to landfill gas capture of methane generated by putrescible
waste. Typically, digestion of mixed solid waste is done as part of compliance with directives to stabilize the
organic fraction of the waste stream prior to disposal. The current trend is toward anaerobic digestion of
source separated organic waste streams, including food waste, yard trimmings and soiled paper. Presorting
is necessary to prevent clogging of the pumps and to reduce the amount of reactor volume occupied by inert
material. Even source-separated waste inevitably contains metal and plastic contaminants and must be
presorted. Anaerobic digestion systems for MSW include:

 Single-stage wet digesters: Typically simpler to design, build, and operate and generally less
expensive, the organic loading rate (OLR) of single-stage digesters is limited by the ability of
methanogenic organisms to tolerate the sudden decline in pH that results from rapid acid production
during hydrolysis.

 Dry fermentation: Type of single-stage digester, but distinctive from other AD categories because
feedstocks are in a solid state that can be handled with a front-end loader and normally no
additional water is added. Digestion takes place at 20-45% total solids, and can be done in either a
batch or continuous mode. In batch mode, materials are loaded into chambers then inoculated and
maintained until the end of the retention time. In continuous mode, fresh feedstock is continuously
fed to the digester and digestate is continuously removed.

 Two-stage digesters: System separates the initial hydrolysis and acid-producing fermentation from
methanogenesis, which allows for higher loading rates for high nitrogen containing materials but
requires additional reactors and handling systems. Another important design parameter is the total
solids (TS) concentration in the reactor, expressed as a fraction of the wet mass of the prepared
feedstock. The remainder of the wet mass is water by definition. Feedstock is typically diluted with
process water to achieve the desirable solids content during the preparation stages.

Source: http://ww.calrecycle.ca.gov/publications/Organics/2008011.pdf

How Biogas is Upgraded to Biomethane/Renewable

Natural Gas
Captured biogas is transported via pipe from the digester, either directly to
a gas use device or to a gas treatment system (e.g. for moisture or
hydrogen sulfide removal). If the feedstocks contains high concentrations of
sulfur and no steps are taken to prevent formation of hydrogen sulfide in
the digester, then hydrogen sulfide is removed from the biogas to prevent
corrosion of the combustion device or other downstream equipment.

Captured biogas can also be further upgraded by removing carbon dioxide,

nitrogen and oxygen in order to meet the high purity and BTU requirements
for pipeline injection or compressed biomethane vehicle fuel.

Learn more >>

 Biomass gasification involves burning of biomass in a limited supply of air to give a
combustible gas consisting of carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, hydrogen, methane, water,
nitrogen, along with contaminants like small char particles, ash and tars. The gas is cleaned
to make it suitable for use in boilers, engines and turbines to produce heat and power
(CHP).

Biomass gasification provides a means of deriving more diverse forms of energy from the
thermochemical conversion of biomass than conventional combustion. The basic
gasification process involves devolatization, combustion and reduction. During
devolatization, methane and other hydrocarbons are produced from the biomass by the
action of heat which leaves a reactive char. During combustion, the volatiles and char are
partially burned in air or oxygen to generate heat and carbon dioxide. In the reduction
phase, carbon dioxide absorbs heat and reacts with the remaining char to produce carbon
monoxide (producer gas). The presence of water vapour in a gasifier results in the
production of hydrogen as a secondary fuel component.

There are two main types of gasifier that can be used to carry out this conversion, fixed
bed gasifiers and fluidized bed gasifiers. The conversion of biomass into a combustible gas
involves a two-stage process. The first, which is called pyrolysis, takes place below 600°C,
when volatile components contained within the biomass are released. These may include
organic compounds, hydrogen, carbon monoxide, tars and water vapour. Pyrolysis leaves a
solid residue called char. In the second stage of the gasification process, this char is reacted
with steam or burnt in a restricted quantity of air or oxygen to produce further combustible
gas. Depending on the precise design of gasifier chosen, the product gas may have a heating
value of 6 – 19 MJ/Nm3.

Layout of a Typical Biomass Gasification Plant

 The products of gasification are a mixture of carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, methane,
hydrogen and various hydrocarbons, which can then be used directly in gas turbines, and
boilers, or used as precursors for synthesising a wide range of other chemicals. In addition
there are a number of methods that can be used to produce higher quality product gases,
including indirect heating, oxygen blowing, and pressurisation. After appropriate
treatment, the resulting gases can be burned directly for cooking or heat supply, or used
in secondary conversion devices, such as internal combustion engines or gas turbines, for
producing electricity or shaft power (where it also has the potential for CHP applications).

Digestion Process
The anaerobic digestion is a sustainable method to convert organic waste
materials into renewable energy and recycled nutrients such as nitrogen and
phosphorus.
The biogas plant is a chain of separate unit processes that must work in series without
any interruptions.
The reception of the waste materials is the first operational part of the whole biogas
plant. In this process the materials (both liquid and solid) are poured into a tank that takes
materials into its depths and supplies the biogas plant following processes without critical
interruptions.
Odour is very-well recognized local environmental issue in all waste treatment facilities.
Watrec approach to solve this issue starts already from the reception unit, which has
closed hatch and efficient, constant odour removal flow that is directed to Watrec odour
removal systems.
In the reception tank the materials are mixed and unwanted obstacles are left in the tank.
The odour treatment systems applied in Watrec biogas plants contains different units,
such as bio-chemical scrubber and activated carbon filter. The system is low-cost in its
operational terms and produces removal efficiency of more than 95 % from odour
concentrations.
The materials that are delivered to the following unit processes are conducted through a
crusher unit to meet the EC animal by-product legislation requirements.
The three-phase heat exchanger systems are one of the key-elements of the Watrec
biogas plant.This operation regulates the temperature of the waste materials
simultaneously to 70 ˚C and then back to mesophilic temperature range.
The system operates in three phases:

1. In the first phase the inputflow is preheated by recirculated heat energy from
outflow of the hygienisation units.
2. On the second phase the sludge is heated up to 70ºC by hot water from the CHP
unit (or other external heat source) in sludge – water heat exchanger.
 3. Then the sludge is cooled to 35-38ºC prior entering into a digester.

The continuous recovery of the heat due to counter-current flow design results as superior
thermal energy use; only 20 to 30 % of the supplied heat produce in the biogas plant CHP
is consumed for hygienization because of the three-phase heat exchangers.
Hygienization ensures the complete elimination of pathogenic bacteria and improves also
the biogas production due to particle hydrolysis – this feature can have more than 20 %
added total energy efficiency.
The heart of the biogas plant is it’s digestion process which can be divided into
four separate steps: hydrolysis, acidification, acetogenesis and methanogenesis.

The important part of the digestion process outputs is the production of nutrient materials.
Considering the mass balance of the whole biogas plant; approximately 5 to 10 % is
directed out from the process as biogas flow. This leaves the remaining fraction, called a
digestate, to owe more than 90 % of the volume of the materials that go through the
treatment process.
Mechanical dewatering in Watrec biogas plants is used to produce precision
fertilizers; fiber fraction and reject water fraction. Production of recycled nutrient
materials in Watrec biogas plant enables us the possibility to call our solutions to be really
a biorefinery.
In Watrec biorefinery systems either decanter centrifuge or screw press is applied for
dewatering depending on the feedstock and required nutrient balance between fertilizer
products. In the dewatering process two different fertilizer streams are produced,
dewatered digestate (fiber fraction) and reject water. Fiber fraction typically has a dry
solids concentration of 25-30 % and has 1:1 ratio between nitrogen and phosphorus.
Reject water has notably higher volume, approximately 85 % of the total input to the plant,
and owes 85 % of the ammonia in the products – together with low concentration of
phosphorus.