Optimum Solid Loading Rate for Biogas Production from Agricultural Wastes

Year 2014, Volume: 10 Issue: 3, 219 - 224, 01.06.2014

H. Emre Akman Ecehan Akman Asli S. Cıggın N. Altınay Perendeci Osman Yaldız

Abstract

Turkey was the fourth and third largest producer of tomato and pepper from

greenhouses, respectively, according to FAO in 2012. The huge amount of agricultural wastes

generated from the production of tomato and green pepper are served as renewable sources for

energy production via anaerobic digestion (AD) For efficiently biogas production, it is essential to

determine the operation conditions of AD such as solid loading rate (SLR) for target wastes.

The aim of this study is to optimize SLR for optimum biogas production from tomato and green

pepper wastes. For this purpose, biochemical methane potential tests were carried out at 37 °C

with 7% and 15% of SLRs. For supplying the nutritional requirements of AD process, cow manure

was also added as a 10% of the selected SLR. As the biogas production from tomato wastes was

nearly 75% increased with the increase in SLR from 15% to 7%., the optimum SLR was

determined as 7% for anaerobic digestion of tomato wastes. On the other hand, decreasing SLR of

pepper waste from 15% to 7% is resulted with only 11% decrease in biogas production. When the

energy revenue between the 7% and 15% SLRs is compared with disposal cost of nearly two-fold

pepper wastes, suitable SLR for pepper wastes can be suggested as 15%. Consequently, the

optimum SLR for anaerobic digestion of tomato and pepper was determined as 7% and 15%,

respectively.

Keywords

Agricultural wastes, biochemical methane production, solid loading rate

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