INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF DESIGN AND NATURE AND ECODYNAMICS, vol.17, pp.513-520, 2022 (Scopus)
The objective of this study was to carry out a
comparative analysis of the influence of the properties of the construction
materials of the biodigester based on three different materials (steel, plastic
PVC, and concrete) to predict the rate of biogas production from the anaerobic
digestion of slaughterhouse waste. The input parameters were substrate
temperature, ambient temperature, biogas temperature, biodigester temperature,
specific biogas production rate, and material properties. A thermal model was
developed using MATLAB® software to predict biogas production, with readily
available input data for an unheated, uninsulated, and partially buried
biodigester. The results obtained showed that the temperatures and the average
daily biogas productions were higher for the steel biodigester (1.5 ± 0.12 m3/day
at 36 ± 2℃) than those produced from the PVC (1.3 ± 0.1 m3/day at 31
± 1.5℃) and concrete (1.2 ± 0.05 m3/day at 27 ± 2℃) biodigesters.
Moreover, the production of electricity for a steel biodigester (14.64 kWh) was
found to be greater than that produced from the PVC (12.81 kWh) and concrete
(10.98 kWh) biodigesters. The results showed that the properties of the
construction materials of the digester had a significant influence on the
temperature and production of biogas, and therefore on the production of
electricity. On the other hand, among the three materials studied, steel was
the material, which yielded the best results. The proposed model gave rRMSE
values between 7.4 and 8.3% and R2 between 0.92 and 0.96.