• Journal of the Korean Society for Marine Environment & Energy
• /
• v.9 no.2
• /
• pp.72-78
• /
• 2006

Effect of organic loading rate on digester performance was evaluated under the conditions of same surface area/reactor volume ratio and different reactor diameter. At the low loading rate of $0.4\;kg\;COD/m^3{\cdot}d$, high rate of organic removal could be obtained regardless of reactor diameter. It can be estimated that reactor configuration can not affect reactor performance at the low loading rate. However, different performance depending on reactor diameter was observed at the organic loading rate of $6\;kg\;COD/m^3{\cdot}d$. That is, volatile acid accumulation and low COD removal efficiency was observed in reactor having 6.4 cm diameter, while volatile acid was not accumulated at all and high COD removal efficiency was observed in reactor having 3 cm diameter. Such a difference of reactor performance depending on reactor diameter can be explained that sludge bed can be fluidized by evolved gas bubble in narrow reactor while sludge bed can not be fluidized by evolved gas bubble only in wide reactor. At a high organic loading rate of $20\;kg\;COD/m^3{\cdot}d$, it can be judged that there is no relation between reactor configuration and reactor performance because all reactors showed very low COD removal efficiencies regardless of reactor diameter. Sludge bed fluidization is one of the most important factors in achieving efficient start-up of anaerobic digester. Narrow and tall type reactor is favorable condition for making sludge bed fluidization at a constant surface area/reactor volume ratio. Thus, it can be judged that reactor configuration and sludge bed fluidization have great influence to reactor performance.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Resources Recycling Conference
• /
• 2001.05b
• /
• pp.129-132
• /
• 2001

The purpose of this research was to understand possibility of foodwaste treatment by hybrid anaerobic reactor(HAR). The Possibility of methane utility and applicability of hybrid reactor system using foodwaste as substrate was investigated. The maximum loading rate and optimized operational conditions were determined. Hybrid anaerobic reactor was filled with packing material 50% of its total volume between the tube and the outer surface. The packing material used was randomly packed open-pore synthesis activated ceramic(SAC) media as support media for microbial attachment, growth, and chemical stability protected bacteria from effect of organic acid accumulation. In this research, although foodwaste has high concentrations C $l^{[-10]}$ and S $O_{4}$$^{2-}$ concentration the possibility of foodwaste anaerobic treatment was when foodwaste is treated by anaerobic digestion, this study focused on the possibility using C $H_4$ gas made under the anaerobic treatment as an alternative energy source. Other objective of this research is to study struvite formation and crystal forms in anaerobic digester. HAR is used to investigate phosphate crystallization without the addition of chemicals.

• Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
• /
• v.10 no.1
• /
• pp.107-117
• /
• 1984

This study was made to evaluate the temperature effects on anaerobic digestion of swine manure. A laboratory single-stage, high-rate, anaerobic digester was operated at 10, 20 and 30 day's HRT at the temperature of 35$\circ$C or 55$\circ$C. The conclusions from this study are as follows: (1) COD and BOD reductions were similar in both the mesophilic and thermophilic digestions. (2) With thermophilic digestion, volatile reduction increased to 67%, as compared with 60% of mesophilic digestion. With thermophilic digestion, the pH increased to 8.5 as compared with 8.0 of mesophilic digestion. With thermophilic digestion, the concentration of volatile acid increased to 763 mg/l, as compared with 250 mg/l of mesophilic digestion. While the gas was produced by mesophilic digestion at 0.74m$^3$/kg of VS fed, it increased to 0.87 m$^3$/kg VS fed by thermophilic digestion. The refractory VS was about 25% of the infiuent VS.

• Journal of the Korea Organic Resources Recycling Association
• /
• v.11 no.3
• /
• pp.75-86
• /
• 2003

In the near future, the capacity of conventional anaerobic digester is thought to be insufficient because of the increase of the total solids from expansion of intercepting sewer, sewage quantity and direct input of night soil from near apartment districts. The objectives of this study was to investigate the improvement of digestion efficiency using microbial agent(Bio-dh). The system was a pilot-scale, two-staged, anaerobic sludge digestion system. The first-stage digester was heated and mixed. The agitation velocity of the first-stage digester was 120rpm. The second-stage digester was neither heated nor mixed. The Digestion temperature was kept at $35{\pm}1^{\circ}C$ The detention time of digester was 19 days. The dosage of sewage sludge and microbial agent were $0.65m^3/day$ and $0.5{\ell}/day$, respectively. The experiments was run for 25days. Three times a week, $COD_{Mn}$ and SS of effluent, TS, VS, and biogas production rate were measured. Temperature, pH, and alkalinity were measured daily. The results were as follows ; Without microbial agent, digestion efficiencies ranged 46.0%~50.9%(mean=48.6%), with microbial agent(Bio-dh), digestion efficiencies ranged 52.8%~57.3%(mean=54.2%). Consequently, microbial agent(Bio-dh) increased the sludge digestion efficiency about 12%. Also, Without microbial agent, the mean concentration of $COD_{Mn}$ and SS of second-stage digester effluent were 1,639mg/L, 4,888mg/L respectively. With microbial agent, the mean concentration of $COD_{Mn}$ and SS of second-stage digester effluent were 859mg/L, 2,405mg/L respectively. Consequently, microbial agent(Bio-dh) increased the removal efficiency of $COD_{Mn}$ and SS about 47.6% and 50.8%, respectively.

• Journal of Electrochemical Science and Technology
• /
• v.1 no.2
• /
• pp.102-111
• /
• 2010

Molten carbonate fuel cell (MCFC) power plants are one of most attractive electricity generation systems for the use of biogas to generate high-efficiency ultra-clean power. However, MCFCs are considerably more expensive than comparable conventional electricity generation systems. The commercialization of MCFCs has been delayed more than expected. After being effective in the Kyoto protocol and considerably increasing the fossil price, the attention focused on $CO_2$ regression and renewable energy sources has increased dramatically. In particular, the commercialization and application of MCFC systems fed with biogas have been revived because of the characteristics of $CO_2$ collection and fuel variety of MCFCs. Better economic results of MCFC systems fed with biogas are expected because biogas is a relatively inexpensive fuel compared to liquefied natural gas (LNG). However, the pretreatment cost is added when using anaerobic digester gas (ADG), one of the biogases, as a fuel of MCFC systems because it contains high $H_2S$ and other contaminants, which are harmful sources to the MCFC stack in ADG. Thus, an accurate economic analysis and comparison between MCFCs fed with biogas and LNG are very necessary before the installation of an MCFC system fed with biogas in a plant. In this paper, the economic analysis of an MCFC fed with ADG was carried out for various conditions of electricity and fuel price and compared with the case of an MCFC fed with LNG.

• Journal of the Korea Organic Resources Recycling Association
• /
• v.19 no.4
• /
• pp.60-65
• /
• 2011

Siloxane is an organic silicon compound and is volatilized into the bio gas from anaerobic digestion. It causes failure of gas combustion engines using the bio gas. Siloxane emission characteristics should be identified to provide a proper siloxane control. This study focuses on characterizing siloxane emission in bio gas from an anaerobic digester of food wastewater operating from January to March. The concentrations of total average siloxane and cycle-siloxane D4 were detected to be 9.5 and $4.0mg\;siloxane/m^3$, respectively. The concentrations of cycle-siloxane and linear-siloxane were resulted in D4>D5>D6 and L4>L3>L5>L2, respectively. The total siloxane concentration was the lowest in January and the highest in March.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
• /
• v.9 no.6
• /
• pp.737-743
• /
• 1999

A conventional thermophilic anaerobic digester was converted into a thermophilic high-rate hybrid anaerobic reactor (THAR) for treating distillery wastewater. The THAR has been operating successfully since May 1995 at a loading rate of 5.45 to $11.52{\;}kg/\textrm{m}^3/d$ (maximum of 15.02). The THAR has demonstrated a soluble Chemical Oxygen Demand (sCOD) removal efficiency of 85 to 91% and a total COD (tCOD) removal efficiency of as much as 72 to 84%. Product gas had a methane content of 59 to 68%. The tCOD removal rates were 4.31 to 5.43, 6.26 to 6.89, and 9.03 to $9.78kg{\;}tCOD/\textrm{m}^3/d$ for tapioca, com, and naked-barley wastewater, respectively. The sCOD removal rates ranged from 3.75 to 4.79,3.28 to 4.89, and 5.57 to 6.21kg $sCOD/\textrm{m}^3/d$ for tapioca, com, and naked-barley wastewater, respectively. There were unknown substances in a naked-barley distillery wastewater that were identified as being toxic for microorganisms. However, the THAR treated naked-barley wastewater continuously for 26 days, operating at an average tCOD loading of $11.08{\;}kg/\textrm{m}^3/d$without any signs of deterioration in either COD removal efficiency or gas production rate. During this period, the average removal efficiencies of tCOD and sCOD were 84% and 91%, respectively, and the gas production rate averaged 6.61 to $7.57{\;}\textrm{m}^3/\textrm{m}^3$ reactor/d which produced 0.57 to $0.69{\;}\textrm{m}^3{\;}biogas/kg{\;}tCOD_{rem}$. From tapioca and com wastewater, the reactor showed an average gas production rate of 3.18 to 3.46 and 4.91 to $5.22{\;}\textrm{m}^3/\textrm{m}^3$ reactor/d which produced 0.53 to 0.69 and 0.62 to $0.71{\;}\textrm{m}^3/kg{\;}tCOD_{rem}$, respectively.

• Journal of Environmental Science International
• /
• v.20 no.10
• /
• pp.1233-1241
• /
• 2011

The main objective of this experimental investigation was $CH_4$ recovery from biogas generated in municipal and wastewater treatment plant. The polysulfone hollow fiber membrane was prepared in order to investigate the permeation properties of $CH_4$ and $CO_2$. Permeability of $CO_2$ in Polysulfone membrane was 11-fold higher than of $CH_4$ gas. A membrane pilot plant for upgrading biogas was constructed and operated at a municipal wastewater treatment plant. The raw biogas contained 66 ~ 68 Vol % $CH_4$, the balance being mainly $CO_2$. The effect of the operating pressure of feed and permeate side and feed flowrate on $CH_4$ recovery concentration and efficiency were investigated with double stage membrane pilot plant. The $CH_4$ concentration in the retentate stream was raised in these tests to 93 Vol % $CH_4$.

• Applied Biological Chemistry
• /
• v.27
• /
• pp.3-17
• /
• 1984

Anaerobic digestion has recently attracted all over the world and Korea also shows no exception. The major benefits of anaerobic digestion are energy production, water pollution control, pathogen reduction and effective manure production. In Korea it was recognized in late sixties that there was a positive need to find alternative energy for farmers household. The main traditional energy sources in rural area were crop residues and forestry products. Therefore Office of Rural Development through its Rural Guidance Bureau disseminated about 29,000 household biogas units from 1969 to 1975 to provide cooking fuel for farmers household and to improve the mode of farmers living standards. The units were welcomed by farmers at that time. Now, however, most of them are not using due to a number of reasons associated with cold winter and some techno-economical problems (in those day, fossil fuel was quite expensive to compare with other prices and since then farmers income was quickly increased). The author studied on bag type household biogas plant to solve some technical problems of existing household biogas plants, but this also has little appeal for the farmers. From 1977 author studied on village scale biogas plant with two pilot plants. From the viewpoint of energy production, COD removal, kill rate of pathogen and fertilizer value, the results obtained from the experiments were quite promising, but the construction cost of the village scale biogas plant was too high for the farmers in Korea. To find most suitable biogas plant for farmers in Korea through the simplifying the biogas digester, the author developed batch-load biogas plant. By feeding coarse crop residues and manures, total solids concentrations of the batch-load biogas plant are about 28 percent which is much higher than continous digester of 5-8 percent. The batch-load biogas plant was welcomed by many farmers in Korea when it was reported on TV and newspapers. The plant was disseminated 154 units in 1982, 766 units in 1983 and 812 units in 1984 as a promissing project. Besides these biogas plant experiments, studies were also conducted 1) to determine gas production rate with agricultural wastes, 2) to evaluate the effect of loading rate, dilution, retention time on biogas production, 3) to project the amount of potencial energy from agricultural wastes.

• Environmental Sciences Bulletin of The Korean Environmental Sciences Society
• /
• v.1 no.2
• /
• pp.125-136
• /
• 1997

Digestion of a municipal wastewater sludge by the anaerobic sequencing batch reactor(ASBR) was investigated to evaluate the performance of the ASBR process at a critical condition of high-solids-content feed. The reactors were operated at an HRT of 10 days with an equivalent loading rate of 0.8-1.5 gVS/L/d at $35^{\circ}C.$ The main conclusions drawn from this study were as follows: 1. Digestion of a municipal wastewater sludge was possible using the ASBR in spite of high concentration of settleable solids in the sludge. The ASBRS with 3- and 4-day cycle period showed almost identical high digestion performances. 2. No adverse effect on digestion stability was observed in the ASBRS in spite of withdrawal and replenishment of $30\%\;or\;40\%$ of liquid contents. A conventional anaerobic digester could be easily converted to the ASBR without any stability problem. 3. Flotation thickening occurred in thicken step of the ASBRS throughout steady state, and floating bed volume at the end of thicken period occupied about $70\%$ of the working volume of the reactor. Efficiency of flotation thickening in the ASBRS could be comparable to that of additional gravity thickening of a completely mixed digester. 4. Solids were accumulated rapidly in the ASBR during start-up period. Solids concentrations in the ASBRS were 2.6 times higher than that in the completely mixed control reactor at steady state. Dehydrogenase activity had a strong correlation with the solids concentration. Dehydrogenase activity of the digested sludge in the ASBR was 2.9 times higher than that of the sludge in the control reactor, and about 25 times higher than that of the subnatant in the ASBR. 5. Remarkable increase in equivalent gas production of $52\%$ was observed at the ASBRS compared with the control reactor in spite of similar Quality of clarified effluent from the ASBRS and control reactor. The increase in gas production from the ASBRS was believed to be combined results of accumulation of microorganisms, higher driving force applied, and additional long-term degradation of organics continuously accumulated.