Pilot Plant Data Assessment in Anaerobic Digestion of Organic Fraction of Municipal Waste Solids

In this paper, a preliminary study of anaerobic digestion of organic fraction of municipal solid wastes (OFMSW) in presented with the aim to compare the performances of both wet- and dry-type reactors. The treatment of OFMSW via anaerobic digestion (AD) producing biogas is a process that is receiving a growing interest because two different needs can be coupled: the request of sustainable municipal waste treatments and increasing demand renewable energy. This paper aims to offer experimental results comparing batch test and continuous experimental reactors under different conditions of humidity and solid content. Results show that both the investigated configurations may be used for converting OFMSW into a high quality biogas and that the increase of dry matter in the continuous process still allows to achieve significant biogas production rates. A slight reduction of the methane content was observed (less than 5% relative) that can be also related to the change in the level of volatile fatty acids. These results are very promising in supporting the possibility of operating an industrial scale plant with a dry-process without affecting the system performance.