Evaluation of single and two stage anaerobic digestion of landfill leachate: Effect of pH and initial organic loading rate on volatile fatty acid (VFA) and biogas production

Sameena Begum; Gangagni Rao Anupoju; S Sridhar; Suresh K Bhargava; Veeriah Jegatheesan; Nicky Eshtiaghi

doi:10.1016/j.biortech.2017.12.069

Evaluation of single and two stage anaerobic digestion of landfill leachate: Effect of pH and initial organic loading rate on volatile fatty acid (VFA) and biogas production

Bioresour Technol. 2018 Mar:251:364-373. doi: 10.1016/j.biortech.2017.12.069. Epub 2017 Dec 23.

Authors

Sameena Begum¹, Gangagni Rao Anupoju², S Sridhar³, Suresh K Bhargava⁴, Veeriah Jegatheesan⁵, Nicky Eshtiaghi⁵

Affiliations

¹ Bioengineering and Environmental Sciences Group, Environmental Engineering and Fossil Fuels (EEFF) Division, CSIR-Indian Institute of Chemical Technology (IICT), Tarnaka, Hyderabad 500007, India; School of Engineering, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT), 124 La Trobe St, Melbourne, VIC 3000, Australia.
² Bioengineering and Environmental Sciences Group, Environmental Engineering and Fossil Fuels (EEFF) Division, CSIR-Indian Institute of Chemical Technology (IICT), Tarnaka, Hyderabad 500007, India. Electronic address: gangagnirao@gmail.com.
³ Membrane Separations Group, Chemical Engineering Department, CSIR- IICT, Tarnaka, Hyderabad 500007, India.
⁴ School of Science, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT), 124 La Trobe St, Melbourne, VIC 3000, Australia.
⁵ School of Engineering, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT), 124 La Trobe St, Melbourne, VIC 3000, Australia.

PMID: 29294458
DOI: 10.1016/j.biortech.2017.12.069

Abstract

This work aims to evaluate the impact of pH and initial organic load (IOL) in terms of Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD) of landfill leachate for the production of value added products during single and two stage anaerobic digestion (AD). It was observed that at an optimal IOL of 48 g/L, acetic acid was dominant at pH 5.5 whereas it was butyric acid at pH of 5.5-6.0 and 10-11. The yield of Volatile Fatty Acids (VFA) was dependent on IOL and it was in the range of 0.26 to 0.36 g VFA/(g COD removed). Methane was also harvested during single and two stage AD and found that it was varying in the range of 0.21-0.34 L CH₄/(g COD removed) and 0.2-0.32 L CH₄/(g COD removed) respectively. An overall increase of 21% COD removal was noticed in two stage AD in comparison to single stage.

Keywords: Anaerobic digestion; Leachate; Methane; Organic loading; Volatile fatty acids.

MeSH terms

Anaerobiosis
Biofuels*
Bioreactors
Fatty Acids, Volatile
Methane
Water Pollutants, Chemical*

Substances

Biofuels
Fatty Acids, Volatile
Water Pollutants, Chemical
Methane