Affiliations: National Engineering Research Center of Solid Waste
Resource Recovery, Kunming 650033, China | Faculty of Environmental Science and Engineering,
Kunming University of Science and Technology, Kunming 650093, China
Abstract: The influence of temperature on the performance of anaerobic
reactors for treating the organic fraction of municipal solid waste (OFMSW) was
studied. Batch digestion of OFMSW was carried out for 32 d at different
temperature (25°C, 35°C, 45°C and 55°C) conditions for total
solid concentrations (TS) 17% with the ratio of total organic carbon to
nitrogen (C/N) being, 25:1 respectively, while keeping other parameters
constant such as inoculum, start-up pH, reactor volume (2 L) and so on.
Temperature can influence the methanogenic bacteria activity, accordingly
inhibiting the OFMSW biodegradation and stabilization efficiency. Anaerobic
reactors excelled at TS reduction, total volatile solid reduction, chemical
oxygen demand reduction, increasing cumulative biogas production, whose rate
was at temperature (35°C and 55°C) conditions. Methane concentration in
the biogas was above 65% in four reactors. In addition, the fluctuation of
temperatures resulted in the biogas production variation. The data obtained
indicated that temperature had a significant influence on anaerobic
process.
Keywords: municipal solid waste, anaerobic digestion, batch processing, temperature
