Determinant impact of waste collection and composition on anaerobic digestion performance: industrial results

Abstract

The performance of the anaerobic digestion process depends deeply on the quality of the waste to be treated. This has been already demonstrated at the lab-scale. The objective of this study is to confirm this result at the industrial scale, with very long representative period and with the same process, the Valorga process. According to the waste quality and the collection type and even with the same conditions of fermentation, the biogas yield can vary by a factor of 1.5 when it is expressed (under normal conditions of pressure and temperature) in m3 biogas/t fresh waste, and by a factor of 2 when it is expressed in m3 CH4/t volatile solids. So, the biogas performance does not characterise a process since it is deeply governed by waste composition. This biogas productivity becomes a pertinent parameter only with consistent and relevant hypothesis and/or analytical results on the waste composition which depends on the collection procedure, the site characteristics and the season.