Effect of Plastic Media on Mesophilic Methane Fermentation of Separated Dairy Manure Slurry at high solids concentration

Abstract

The purpuse of this study was to investigate the performance of two types of plastic media for fixed-bed anaerobic reactor of dairy manure slurry at high solids concentration. Two media types were polyurethane and polyester. The effects of loading rate (3.15-10.09g/L·day) on the methane production, methane concentration and the composition of effluent were observed. The results were summarized as follows:
1. With increasing the loading rate, the CH₄ production and the CH₄ concentration in the fixed-bed reactors were more stable than the conventional reactor.
2. A high rate of media volume kept methane production more stable than a low rate.
3. Evaluation of the two madia types showed that polyester was slight more effective in retaining the bacterial culture, and the original media were not lost during the experiment.
4. From the above findings, it can be concluded that a fixed-bed reactor retaining the methane bacteria in high concentration demonstrates the characteristics that make it suitable to apply to the high loading rate with high solids of dairy manure slurry.