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Open Access | Published on June 21, 2019

Anaerobic co-digestion of poultry manure and used cooking oil for enhanced biogas production

Eftaxias Alexandros
Gkalimanis Prodromos
Koskinari Maria Dolores
Koumara Alexandra
Aivasidis Alexander
Abstract

Aim of this study was to evaluate the anaerobic co-digestion of diluted poultry manure (DPM) and used cooking oil (UCO). Mixtures of DPM with different UCO dosages (1 to 6% v/v) were prepared using a high-shear emulsifier and digested in batch anaerobic reactors. Increasing the UCO dosage resulted in a respective increase of the emulsion COD (from initially 64 to 182 g/L) however the stability of the emulsion was adversely affected. The optimum UCO dosage (1.5-2.0% v/v) was further digested in a semi-continuous mesophilic anaerobic reactor, to assess the feasibility of the process at OLR up to 8 g/Ld. The anaerobic reactor was stable, giving a biogas yield of 0.45 L/gCOD, with low supernatant COD (6 g/L), negligible VFA accumulation and without foaming.

Keywords
anaerobic digestion, pre-treatment, fat oil and grease, poultry manure, biogas