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Water Science and Technology Vol 41 No 3 pp 145–153 © IWA Publishing 2000

Increase of anaerobic degradation of particulate organic matter in full-scale biogas plants by mechanical maceration

H. Hartmann*, I. Angelidaki**, B.K. Ahring*** and B.K. Ahring****

*The Anaerobic Microbiology/Biotechnology Research Group, Department of Biotechnology, Building 227, The Technical University of Denmark, 2800 Lyngby, Denmark
**The Anaerobic Microbiology/Biotechnology Research Group, Department of Biotechnology, Building 227, The Technical University of Denmark, 2800 Lyngby, Denmark
***The Anaerobic Microbiology/Biotechnology Research Group, Department of Biotechnology, Building 227, The Technical University of Denmark, 2800 Lyngby, Denmark
****School of Engineering and Applied Science Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, UCLA, L.A., California, USA


ABSTRACT
Different concepts of implementation of mechanical pretreatment for enhancing the biogas potential from fibers in manure feedstock were evaluated by sampling before and after macerators at different biogas plants and from a fiber separation unit. An increase of the biogas potential of up to 25% by pretreatment of the whole feed in the macerator before the reactor was observed. Implementation concepts with a treatment of the fibers alone after separation from the manure showed to be not efficient due to a low recovery of organic matter in the fibers by the separation unit. The low operational costs of a macerator make it attractive to use this pretreatment method for a more complete degradation of particulate organic matter. Investigation of the size distribution of the fibers showed that a change in biogas potential was not correlated to a smaller size of the fibers. Results from the macerators indicate that the biodegradability of the fibers is rather enhanced by shearing which is not necessarily reflected by a change in fiber size.

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