Modeling and optimization of anaerobic swine waste digestion systems
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Mathematical models of the digestion process, an anaerobic digestion system, and an economic analysis of a digestion system were developed. The goal was to accurately simulate the performance of a facility producing less than one million grams of total solids of waste per day. Once developed and validated, these models were used to conduct optimization and sensitivity studies to delineate the best regions for system operation, and to determine the variables and parameters that have the biggest impact on system performance. Whether optimizing for energy or economic value, it was found that the best designs included thermophilic operation with high values of influent volatile solids concentration. Although large improvements in performance are predicted above standard mesophilic operation, these stressed conditions have not been confirmed with data from full scale digesters using swine manure. It was also found that the digestion process is the most sensitive to bacterial growth constants directly related to the production or utilization of acetate. The economic model was the most sensitive to parameters which effect the volume of the digester (such as the hydraulic retention time), or the methane productivity (such as the methane yield constant).
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 License.