Abstract
Many beer breweries use high-rate anaerobic digestion (AD) systems to treat their soluble high-strength wastewater. Biogas from these AD systems is used to offset nonrenewable energy utilization in the brewery. With increasing nonrenewable energy costs, interest has mounted to also digest secondary residuals from the high-rate digester effluent, which consists of yeast cells, bacteria, methanogens, and small (hemi)cellulosic particles. Mesophilic (37 °C) and thermophilic (55 °C) lab-scale, low-rate continuously-stirred anaerobic digestion (CSAD) bioreactors were operated for 258 days by feeding secondary residuals at a volatile solids (VS) concentration of ∼40 g l−1. At a hydraulic retention time (HRT) of 15 days and a VS loading rate of 2.7 g VS l−1 day−1, the mesophilic bioreactor showed an average specific volumetric biogas production rate of 0.88 l CH4 l−1 day−1 and an effluent VS concentration of 22.2 g VS l−1 (43.0% VS removal efficiency) while the thermophilic bioreactor displayed similar performances. The overall methane yield for both systems was 0.21 l CH4 g−1 VS fed and 0.47–0.48 l CH4 g−1 VS removed. A primary limitation of thermophilic digestion of this protein-rich waste is the inhibition of methanogens due to higher nondissociated (free) ammonia (NH3) concentrations under similar total ammonium (NH4 +) concentrations at equilibrium. Since thermophilic AD did not result in advantageous methane production rates or yields, mesophilic AD was, therefore, superior in treating secondary residuals from high-rate AD effluent. An additional digester to convert secondary residuals to methane may increase the total biogas generation at the brewery by 8% compared to just conventional high-rate digestion of brewery wastewater alone.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Ahring BK, Sandberg M, Angelidaki I (1995) Volatile fatty-acids as indicators of process imbalance in anaerobic digesters. Appl Microbiol Biotechnol 43:559–565
Angelidaki I, Ahring BK (1993) Thermophilic anaerobic digestion of livestock waste: the effect of ammonia. Appl Microbiol Biotechnol 38:560–564
Angelidaki I, Ahring BK (1994) Anaerobic thermophilic digestion of manure at different ammonia loads––effect of temperature. Water Res 28:727–731
Angenent LT, Sung S, Raskin L (2002) Methanogenic population dynamics during startup of a full-scale anaerobic sequencing batch reactor treating swine waste. Water Res 36:4648–4654
Calli B, Mertoglu B, Inanc B, Yenigun O (2005) Community changes during start-up in methanogenic bioreactors exposed to increasing levels of ammonia. Environ Technol 26:85–91
Clesceri LS, Greenberg AE, Eaton AD (1998) Standard methods for the examination of water and wastewater. APHA, AWWA, WEF, Washington
De Baere LA, Devocht M, Van Assche P, Verstraete W (1984) Influence of high NACl and NH4Cl salt levels on methanogenic associations. Water Res 18:543–548
de Zeeuw WJ, Lettinga G (1980) Use of anaerobic digestion for wastewater treatment. Antonie Van Leeuwenhoek 46:110–112
El-Hadj TB, Dosta J, Mata-Alvarez J (2007) Start-up and HRT influence in thermophilic and mesophilic anaerobic digesters seeded with waste activated sludge. Chem Biochem Eng Q 21:145–150
Fernandez N, Forster CF (1993) A study of the operation of mesophilic and thermophilic anaerobic filters treating a synthetic coffee waste. Bioresour Technol 45:223–227
Fogler HS (1999) Elements of chemical reaction engineering. Prentice Hall Inc, Upper Saddle River, NJ
Foresti E, Zaiat M, Vallero M (2006) Anaerobic processes as the core technology for sustainable domestic wastewater treatment: consolidated applications, new trends, perpectives, and challenges. Environ Sci Biotechnol 5:3–19
Gujer W, Zehnder AJB (1983) Conversion processes in anaerobic digestion. Water Sci Technol 15:127–167
Harris WL, Dague RR (1993) Comparative performance of anaerobic filters at mesophilic and thermophilic temperatures. Water Environ Res 65:764–771
Hoffmann R, Garcia ML, Veskivar M, Karim K, Al-Dahhan MH, Angenent LT (2007) Effect of shear on performance and microbial ecology of completely-stirred anaerobic digesters treating animal manure. Biotechnol Bioeng, vol. 19 (Epub ahead of print)
Ince BK, Ince O, Anderson GK, Arayici S (2001) Assessment of biogas use as an energy source from anaerobic digestion of brewery wastewater. Water Air Soil Pollut 126:239–251
Jayantha KS, Ramanujam TK (1995) Start-up criteria for a upflow anaerobic sludge blanket (UASB) reactor. Bioprocess Eng 13:307–310
Kleerebezem R, Macarie H (2003) Treating industrial wastewater: anaerobic digestion comes of age. Chem Eng 110:56–64
Koster IW, Koomen E (1988) Ammonia inhibition of the maximum growth rate (μm) of hydrogenotrophic methanogens at various pH-levels and temperatures. Appl Microbiol Biotechnol 28:500–505
Lehtomaki A, Huttunen S, Rintala JA (2007) Laboratory investigations on co-digestion of energy crops and crop residues with cow manure for methane production: effect of crop to manure ratio. Resour Conserv Recycl 51:591–609
Lettinga G (1995) Anaerobic digestion and wastewater treatment systems. Antonie Van Leeuwenhoek 67:3–28
Mackie RI, Bryant MP (1995) Anaerobic-digestion of cattle waste at mesophilic and thermophilic temperatures. Appl Microbiol Biotechnol 43:346–350
Massart N, Bates R, Corning B, Neun G (2006) When it bubbles over. Water Environ Technol 18:50–55
Muller CD, Abu-Orf M, Novak JT (2007) Application of mechanical shear in an internal-recycle for the enhancement of mesophilic anaerobic digestion. Water Environ Res 79:297–304
Rodriguez-Martinez J, Martinez-Amador SY, Garza-Garcia Y (2005) Comparative anaerobic treatment of wastewater from pharmaceutical, brewery, paper and amino acid producing industries. J Ind Microbiol Biotechnol 32:691–696
Rudd T, Hicks SJ, Lester JN (1985) Comparison of the treatment of a synthetic meat waste by mesophilic and thermophilic anaerobic fluidized bed reactors. Environ Technol Lett 6:209–224
Schwarzenbach RP, Gschwend PM, Imboden DM (2002) Environmental organic chemistry. Wiley, Hoboken
Soto M, Mendez R, Lema JM (1992) Characterization and comparison of biomass from mesophilic and thermophilic fixed-bed anaerobic digesters. Water Sci Technol 25:203–212
Stafford DA, Hawkes DL, Horton R (1980) Methane production from waste organic matter. CRC Press, Boca Raton
Steinhaus B, Garcia ML, Shen AQ, Angenent LT (2007) A portable anaerobic microbioreactor reveals optimum growth conditions for the methanogen Methanosaeta concilii. Appl Environ Microbiol 73:1653–1658
Strenstrom M (1983) Anaerobic digestion of municipal solid sludge. J Environ Eng 109:1148–1158
Timur H, Özturk I (1999) Anaerobic sequencing batch reactor treatment of landfill leachate. Water Res 33:3225–3230
Trnovec W, Britz TJ (1998) Influence of organic loading rate and hydraulic retention time on the efficiency of a UASB bioreactor treating a canning factory effluent. Water SA 24:1147–1152
van Lier J (1996) Limitations of thermophilic anaerobic wastewater treatment and the consequences for process design. Antonie Van Leeuwenhoek 69:1–14
van Lier JB, Grolle KC, Frijters CT, Stams AJ, Lettinga G (1993) Effects of acetate, propionate, and butyrate on the thermophilic anaerobic degradation of propionate by methanogenic sludge and defined cultures. Appl Environ Microbiol 59:1003–1011
Vandenburgh SR, Ellis TG (2002) Effect of varying solids concentration and organic loading on the performance of temperature phased anaerobic digestion process. Water Environ Res 74:142–148
Vandevoorde L, Verstraete W (1987) Anaerobic solid state fermentation of cellulosic substrates with possible application to cellulase production. Appl Microbiol Biotechnol 26:479–484
Verstraete W, de Beer D, Pena M, Lettinga G, Lens P (1996) Anaerobic bioprocessing of organic wastes. World J Microbiol Biotechnol 12:221–238
Wiegant WM, De Man AWA (1986) Granulation of biomass in thermophilic anaerobic sludge reactors. Biotechnol Bioeng 28:718–727
Wiegant WM, Hennick M, Lettinga G (1986) Separation of the propionate degradation to improve the efficiency of thermophilic anaerobic treatment of acidified wastewaters. Water Res 20:517–524
Yacob S, Shirai Y, Hassan MA, Wakisaka M, Subash S (2006) Start-up operation of semi-commercial closed anaerobic digester for palm oil mill effluent treatment. Proc Biochem 41:962–964
Zitomer DH, Bachman TC, Vogel DS (2005) Thermophilic anaerobic digester with ultrafilter for solids stabilization. Water Sci Technol 52:525–530
Acknowledgments
We would like to acknowledge the financial support of Anheuser-Busch Inc., St. Louis, MO and thank Thea Cummings for her support in feeding the bioreactors and Jelte Lanting (Biothane Corporation, Camden, NJ) for consulting on the operating conditions.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
JIMB-2008: BioEnergy—Special issue.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Bocher, B.T., Agler, M.T., Garcia, M.L. et al. Anaerobic digestion of secondary residuals from an anaerobic bioreactor at a brewery to enhance bioenergy generation. J Ind Microbiol Biotechnol 35, 321–329 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10295-007-0295-4
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10295-007-0295-4