Monday, May 5, 2008
9-27

Heating Strategy and Power Consumption of a Pilot Plant Anaerobic Digester

Teodoro Espinosa-Solares1, Salvador Valle-Guadarrama1, Luis Medina-Torres2, John Bombardiere3, and Max Domaschko4. (1) Ingeniería Agroindustrial, Universidad Autónoma Chapingo, Apartado Postal # 161, Chapingo, Edo de México, Mexico, (2) Facultad de Química, Universiad Nacional Autónoma de México, Conjunto “E” L-213, FQ, Cd. Universitaria, 04510,, Ciudad de México, D.F., Mexico, (3) Consultant for Enviro Control Ltd., Singleton Court Business Park, Wonastow Road, Monmouth, United Kingdom, (4) Gus R. Douglass Land-Grant Institute, West Virginia State University, Institute, WV 25112-1000

Mixing plays an important role in anaerobic digester performance. A homogeneous medium in terms of chemical composition and temperature enables steady state conditions for biogas production. The pilot plant studied here achieves mixing by pumping digestate and recycling biogas. Temperature control allows a narrow span between the target and the tank temperatures, which is controlled by pumping digestate through an external heat exchanger. Considering excessive mixing by pumping could compromise the consortia performance for methane production and also modify the power consumption, heating strategy has been evaluated by comparing performance when modifying the span for triggering the temperature control. The results showed that under the experimental conditions, increments on mechanical and heating power consumption were observed as the span for control temperature was increased. Global heat transfer coefficients were evaluated for the different experimental conditions. Biogas production and composition were not influenced extraordinary by changes in temperature control span.

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