• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.38 no.4
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• pp.201-209
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• 2016

Theoretical maximum methane yield of glucose at STP (1 atm, $0^{\circ}C$) is 0.35 L $CH_4/g$ COD. However, most researched actual methane yields of anaerobic digester (AD) on lab scale is lower than theoretical ones. A wide range of them have been reported according to experiments methods and types of organic matters. Recent year, a MET (Microbial electrochemical technology) is a promising technology for producing sustainable bio energies from AD via rapid degradation of high concentration organic wastes, VFAs (Volatile Fatty Acids), toxic materials and non-degradable organic matters with electrochemical reactions. In this study, methane yields of food waste leachate and sewage waste sludge were evaluated by using BMP (Biochemical Methane Potential) and continuous AD tests. As the results, methane production volume from the anaerobic digester equipped with MET (AD + MET) was higher than conventional AD in the ratio of 2 to 3 times. The actual methane yields from all experiments were lower than those of theoretical value of glucose. The methane yield, however, from the AD + MET occurred similar to the theoretical one. Moreover, biogas compositions of AD and AD + MET were similar. Consequently, methane production from anaerobic digester with MET increased from the result of higher organic removal efficiency, while, further researches should be required for investigating methane production mechanisms in the anaerobic digester with MET.

• Magazine of the Korean Society of Agricultural Engineers
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.53-66
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• 1980

The research work is concerned with the analytical and experimental studies on the heat transfer phenomenon around the underground concrete digester used for biogas production Systems. A mathematical and computational method was developed to estimate heat losses from underground cylindrical concrete digester used for biogas production systems. To test its feasibility and to evaluate thermal parameters of materials related, the method was applied to six physical model digesters. The cylindrical concrete digester was taken as a physical model, to which the model,atical model of heat balance can be applied. The mathematical model was transformed by means of finite element method and used to analyze temperature distribution with respect to several boundary conditions and design parameters. The design parameters of experimental digesters were selected as; three different sizes 40cm by 80cm, 80cm by 160cm and l00cm by 200cm in diameter and height; two different levels of insulation materials-plain concrete and vermiculite mixing in concrete; and two different types of installation-underground and half-exposed. In order to carry out a particular aim of this study, the liquid within the digester was substituted by water, and its temperature was controlled in five levels-35。 C, 30。 C, 25。 C, 20。C and 15。C; and the ambient air temperature and ground temperature were checked out of the system under natural winter climate conditions. The following results were drawn from the study. 1.The analytical method, by which the estimated values of temperature distribution around a cylindrical digester were obtained, was able to be generally accepted from the comparison of the estimated values with the measured. However, the difference between the estimated and measured temperature had a trend to be considerably increased when the ambient temperature was relatively low. This was mainly related variations of input parameters including the thermal conductivity of soil, applied to the numerical analysis. Consequently, the improvement of these input data for the simulated operation of the numerical analysis is expected as an approach to obtain better refined estimation. 2.The difference between estimated and measured heat losses was shown to have the similar trend to that of temperature distribution discussed above. 3.It was found that a map of isothermal lines drawn from the estimated temperature distribution was very useful for a general observation of the direction and rate of heat transfer within the boundary. From this analysis, it was interpreted that most of heat losses is passed through the triangular section bounded within 45 degrees toward the wall at the bottom edge of the digesten Therefore, any effective insulation should be considered within this region. 4.It was verified by experiment that heat loss per unit volume of liquid was reduced as the size of the digester became larger For instance, at the liquid temperature of 35˚ C, the heat loss per unit volume from the 0. 1m$^3$ digester was 1, 050 Kcal/hr m$^3$, while at for 1. 57m$^3$ digester was 150 Kcal/hr m$^3$. 5.In the light of insulation, the vermiculite concrete was consistently shown to be superior to the plain concrete. At the liquid temperature ranging from 15。 C to 350 C, the reduction of heat loss was ranged from 5% to 25% for the half-exposed digester, while from 10% to 28% for the fully underground digester. 6.In the comparison of heat loss between the half-exposed and underground digesters, the heat loss from the former was fr6m 1,6 to 2, 6 times as much as that from the latter. This leads to the evidence that the underground digester takes advantage of heat conservation during winter.

• Magazine of the Korean Society of Agricultural Engineers
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• v.35 no.3
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• pp.81-90
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• 1993

Groundwater and animal wastes are typical example which are underutilized resources than their value in agriculture. This paper was to investigate the actual patterns of utilization of water curtain for greenhouses and methane gas utilization from swine wastes in a view point of promoting more efficient use of alternative energy. The results from measurements can be summarized as follows : 1.It was estimated that the maximum heating load per l0a was around 23,2804/hr and the heating load at January showed 3.93X 1064 respectively for strawberry greenhouses with insulation by the water curtain. 2.The average heating cost of the greenhouse with water curtain system amounted to about 75,000 Won per l0a. This result suggested that the greater cultivated area provides less heating cost. 3.The operating volume was about 73 percent of the optimum size of the digester. The net available methane gas rates of the produced gas remained close to 62 percent, But the conventional and small size of the digester was maintained at a lower level of around 20 to 29 percent. 4.It appeared that major problems of biogas production system were required to maintain the temperature of the fermentation above ambient temperature and the optimum volume of digester.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.607-628
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• 1999

The swine waste industry is growing rapidly along with the world human population. The trend is toward more concentrated piggeries with numbers of herds in the thousands. Associated with these increased herds are large quantities of wastes, including organic matter, inorganic nutrients, and gaseous emissions. The trend in swine waste management is toward treatment of these wastes to minimize negative impact on the health and comfort of workers and animals and the atmosphere, water, and soil environments. Treatment of these wastes has traditionally involved land application, lagoons, oxidation ditches, and conventional batch and continuously stirred reactor designs. More sophisticated treatment systems are being implemented, involving advanced anaerobic digester designs, integrated with solids separation, aerobic polishing of digester effluents, and biological nutrient removal. This review discusses the present and future role of anaerobic processes in piggery waste treatment with emphasis on reactor design, operating and performance parameters, and effluent processing.

• Journal of the Korea Organic Resources Recycling Association
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.112-121
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• 2009

To obtain basic design criteria for underground anaerobic digestion and enhance biogas production from swine slurry, a $20m^3$ underground anaerobic digester (UGAD) was constructed and operated at mesophilic ($31{\sim}37^{\circ}C$) temperature with an organic loading rate (OLR) at $23.6kgVS/m^3/day$. The average biogas and $CH_4$ production rate were observed at 8.62 and $5.78m^3/day$, respectively. The mean percentile of $CH_4$ and $CO_2$ were also observed at 67.5% and 19.6%. The relative biogas yield was explored at $733L/kg\;VS_{added}$ and $CH_4$ yield was at $495L/kg\;VS_{added}$ respectively. The removal rate of biochemical constituents and pathogens were noticed considerably at 68%, 74%, 79%, 86%, 89%, 81%, 55%, 79%, 98% and 100% on TS, VS, TSS, $BOD_5$, $TCOD_{cr}$, $SCOD_{cr}$, $NH_3-N$, available P, fecal coliforms and Salmonella, respectively. This study suggested that, the modified UGAD system is a greatly desirable for anaerobic digestion for swine slurry with regards to high methane yield and biodegradability.

• Journal of Korean Institute of Industrial Engineers
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.155-164
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• 1996

Biomass to methane via anaerobic digestion conversion is a good supply method of substitutable energy resources. The economic viability of this technology is contingent upon managing the production facilities in a cost effective manner. The problem is to determine the batch production sequence as well as the batch residence times in the digester so as to maximize total gas production over a given planning horizon. The problem is difficult to solve since the batch sequencing decisions and the batch residence time decisions cannot be isolated. This paper developes a heuristic algorithm which is based on a dynamic programming procedure for the multiple feedstock sequencing and scheduling biogas production systems and demonstrates to yield good results.

• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.203-209
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• 2019

Organic wastewater generated from polyester manufacturing processes was selected from H company to investigate the feasibility of anaerobic digestion that produces gases including methane. Bio Methane Potential (BMP) tests were conducted to measure the gas production and methane concentration for 7 process wastewater and 2 kinds of sludges from the H company. Also, along with monitoring pH and alkalinity during the anaerobic digestion process, the concentrations of COD and 1,4-dioxane were measured with 4 different operating conditions for N Emulsion (NE) and Ethylene Glycol (EG) wastewater. The BMP tests showed that 65% of methane was produced from NE and EG wastewater. This suggests that the organic wastewater from H company can be effectively treated by an anaerobic digester by which more than 90% of COD was removed.

• Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.103-109
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• 2011

This work experimentally determined the effect of thermal and microwave pretreatments on the anaerobic digestion of mixtures of municipal primary and secondary sludges in semi-continuous mesophilic digesters at hydraulic retention times (HRT) of 20, 15, 10, 7, and 5 days. The ratio of soluble chemical oxygen demand (COD) to total COD in thermally pretreated and microwaved sludges at $80^{\circ}C$ was 2.7 and 3.2 times higher than that of raw sludge, respectively. The volatile solids (VS) and COD removal efficiencies in all three digesters fed with raw (control), thermally pretreated (TM), and microwaved (MW) sludges decreased as the HRT was reduced. The highest relative improvement in VS removal compared to the control occurred at the HRT of 5 days in the TM and MW (29 and 41% higher than the control, respectively). At this HRT, improvement in the COD removal efficiencies in the TM and MW compared to the control was 28 and 53%, respectively. Improvements in biogas production compared with the control increased in both the TM and MW as the HRT was reduced to 5 days. The relative improvement in daily biogas production compared to the control from the TM and MW was 33 and 53% higher than the control at the HRT of 5 days, respectively. The results show that microwave pretreatment is more effective than thermal pretreatment in increasing the solubilization degree and mesophilic anaerobic biodegradability of sewage sludge.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.30 no.8
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• pp.1198-1205
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• 2017

Objective: An experiment was conducted to isolate and identify new methanogens in Korea from an anaerobic digester that uses pig slurry. Methods: An anaerobic digestate sample was collected from an anaerobic digester using pig slurry. Pre-reduced media were used for the growth and isolation of methanogens. Growth temperature range, pH range, NaCl concentration range, substrate utilization, and antibiotic tolerance were investigated to determine the physiological characteristics of isolated methanogens. The isolates were also examined microscopically for their morphology and Gram-stained. Polymerase chain reaction of 16S rRNA and mcrA gene-based amplicons was used for identification purpose. Results: Four strains, designated KOR-3, -4, -5, and -6, were isolated and were non-motile, irregular coccoid, and 0.5 to $1.5{\mu}m$ in diameter. Moreover, the cell walls of isolated strains were Gram-negative. KOR-3 and KOR-4 strains used acetate for methane production but did not use $H_2+CO_2$, formate, or methanol as a growth substrate KOR-5 and KOR-6 strains utilized acetate, methanol, and trimethylamine for methanogenesis but did not use $H_2+CO_2$ or formate as a growth substrate. The optimum temperature and pH for growth of four strains were $39^{\circ}C$ and 6.8 to 7.2, respectively. The optimum concentration of NaCl for growth of KOR-3, KOR-5, and KOR-6 were 1.0% (w/v). The optimum NaCl concentration for KOR-4 was 0.5% (w/v). All of the strains tolerated ampicillin, penicillin G, kanamycin, streptomycin, and tetracycline; however, chloramphenicol inhibited cell growth. Phylogenetic analysis of 16S rRNA and mcrA genes demonstrated that strains KOR-3, -4, -5, and -6 are related to Methanosarcina mazei (M. mazei, 99% sequence similarity). Conclusion: On the basis of physiological and phylogenetic characteristics, strains KOR-3, -4, -5, and -6 are proposed to be new strains within the genus Methanosarcina, named M. mazei KOR-3, -4, -5, and -6.

• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.39 no.2
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• pp.82-88
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• 2017

MET (Microbial Electrochemical Technology), such as MFC (Microbial Fuel Cell) and MEC (Microbial Electrolysis Cell), is a promising technology for producing sustainable biogas from an anaerobic digester (AD). At current stage, however, the most likely limiting factors, large internal resistances, should be overcome for successful scale up of this technology. Various researchers reported that application of electrode materials containing high current density, increase of ion strength and conductivity, configuration of electrode are good methods for minimizing internal resistances. Recently, stainless steel is receiving great attention because of not only high performance and durability but also low cost. Therefore, in this study, we evaluate electrochemical characteristics and biogas production rate using various electrode materials and configuration (graphite carbon coated with catalysts ($GC-C_M$) or not (GC), stainless steel mesh (SUS-M) and plate (SUS-P)). As the results, current densities of $GC-C_M$, GC, SUS-P, SUS-M were 2.03, 1.36, 1.04, $1.13A/m^2$, respectively. Methane yields of $GC-C_M$, GC, SUS-P, SUS-M were 0.27, 0.14, 0.19, 0.21 $L-CH_4/g-COD_{rem}$., respectively. Stainless steel shows high current density and methane yield, which are similar as graphite carbon coated with catalysts.