Comparative process stability and efficiency of anaerobic digestion; mesophilic vs. thermophilic

Anaerobic Digestion at 45°C for Sludge Treatment: A Trade-off between Performances and Capability in Producing Class a Biosolids

“…The OLR for 45°C and 55°C systems were generally higher, considering that it was observed previously that anaerobic digestion systems operating at higher temperature were able to tolerate higher organic loading [3], [4], [6]. The SRT of all digesters were the same at 10 days.…”

Anaerobic treatment of activated sludge from Swedish pulp and paper mills – biogas production potential and limitations

“…In such cases, the loading capacity of the system can be improved by adding more of the limiting nutrients, which will improve the microbial growth rate. Cobalt has in many cases been shown to be rate-limiting and its subsequent addition has been reported to affect the transformation of VFAs [26][27][28]. The present authors' experience of the addition of Co is that levels below 0.1 mg Co L -1 reactor volume can be rate-limiting at loadings exceeding 2.5 g VS L -1…”

The effects of initial substrate concentration, C/N ratio, and temperature on solid-state anaerobic digestion from composting rice straw

“…The findings of Mashad et al (2004) indicated that SS-AD under mesophilic conditions exhibited a poor start-up performance, whereas operating SS-AD systems under thermophilic conditions (55.8°C) can accelerate the AD process. Kim et al (2002) found a similar phenomenon of higher biogas yield during anaerobic digestion of organic fraction of municipal solid waste (OFMSW) at thermophilic conditions than that at mesophilic conditions. However, recent research by Li et al (2010) found that total methane production increased with temperature from ambient to mesophilic conditions, whereas acidification occurred in thermophilic conditions and led to the inhibition of biogas production.…”