Bioresource Technology 131 (2013) 612

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Bioresource Technology
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/biortech

Kinetics of psychrophilic anaerobic sequencing batch reactor treating

ushed dairy manure
Jingwei Ma a, Liang Yu a, Craig Frear a, Quanbao Zhao a, Xiujin Li b, Shulin Chen a,
a
b

Department of Biological Systems Engineering, Washington State University, Pullman, WA 99164, USA
Center for Resources and Environmental Research, Beijing University of Chemical Technology, Beijing 100029, China

h i g h l i g h t s
" A new biomass retention strategy for solids containing inuent was presented.
" Inuent solids were used as natural biolm support media for high rate digestion.
" The technology showed a good performance despite short HRT and low temperature.
" There is free of clogging hazard in biolm support media caused by manure ber.
" Four microbial growth kinetic models were compared for biolm kinetics study.

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history:
Received 2 October 2012
Received in revised form 29 November 2012
Accepted 30 November 2012
Available online 12 December 2012
Keywords:
Psychrophilic
Kinetics
ASBR
Anaerobic digestion
Dairy manure

a b s t r a c t
In this study, a new strategy, improving biomass retention with ber material present within the dairy
manure as biolm carriers, was evaluated for treating ushed dairy manure in a psychrophilic anaerobic
sequencing batch reactor (ASBR). A kinetic study was carried out for process control and design by
comparing four microbial growth kinetic models, i.e. rst order, Grau, Monod and Chen and Hashimoto
models. A volumetric methane production rate of 0.24 L/L/d of and a specic methane productivity of
0.19 L/gVSloaded were achieved at 6 days HRT. It was proved that an ASBR using manure ber as support
media not only improved methane production but also reduced the necessary HRT and temperature to
achieve a similar treating efciency compared with current technologies. The kinetic model can be used
for design and optimization of the process.
2012 Published by Elsevier Ltd.

1. Introduction
Livestock farms in US produce a total of about two billion tons
of manure each year (Gillespie and Flanders, 2010), which accounts
for 8% of the total US anthropogenic bio-methane emissions (USEPA, 2010). Anaerobic digestion (AD) is an alternative to livestock
waste management that offers economic and environmental benets. Besides alleviating manure-associated greenhouse gas (GHG)
emissions and farm-generated odors, AD of animal waste provides
fertilizers rich in nutrient, and biogas as renewable energy.
Wider adoption of AD for animal manure management has been
limited primarily by economics. This is especially true in some
applications where the wastewater is relatively dilute such as in
ushing dairies. Flushed manure handling systems are widely employed within large-scale dairy farms due to their reduced labor
and mechanical failures (Powers et al., 1997). However, ushing
Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 509 335 3743; fax: +1 509 335 2722.
E-mail address: chens@wsu.edu (S. Chen).
0960-8524/$ - see front matter 2012 Published by Elsevier Ltd.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.biortech.2012.11.147

systems produce a waste stream with total solids of 12%, negatively impacting conventional AD treatment processes due to the
fact that diluted manure increases digester size and heating
requirements. Anaerobic digestion at psychrophilic temperature
can alleviate this concern, if corresponding reduction in biogas production rates due to the lower utilized temperature can be overcome through high microbial accumulation (Kashyap et al.,
2003). By inference, assuming adequate psychrophilic operation,
the main concerns with using an anaerobic digester for dilute manure treatment is the challenges in achieving higher solids retention
time (SRT) required to retain microbial biomass and reducing required size. Typical designs such as continuous stirred-tank reactor
(CSTR) or plug ow (PF) digesters cannot accomplish such decoupling of SRT and HRT (hydraulic retention time) (Zaher et al., 2008).
Many efforts have been made to increase microbial biomass
retention with different digester congurations, such as xedbed and hybrid reactors (Borja et al., 1994; Demirer and
Chen, 2005; Umana et al., 2008; Wilkie et al., 2004; Zaher et al.,
2008), and have been successfully applied at low temperature

J. Ma et al. / Bioresource Technology 131 (2013) 612

Nomenclature

l
lm
rm
X0
X
V
Q
S0
S
h
b
k
k
Ks

specic microbial growth rate (/d)

maximum specic microbial growth rate (/d)
microbial growth rate (g/L/d)
inuent biomass concentration (g/L)
efuent biomass concentration (g/L)
digester working volume (L)
ow rate (L/d)
inuent substrate concentration (g/L)
efuent substrate concentration (g/L)
hydraulic retention time (d)
endogenous decay constant (/d)
maximum specic substrate utilization rate (gVS/g/d)
rst order rate constant (/d)
half-saturation constant (gVS/L)

(Siggins et al., 2011; Zhang et al., 2012). A variety of external articial biolm support media, such as spherical plastic trickling lter
media, oating support media, automobile tires, and zeolite have
been employed in anaerobic biolm digesters to enhance biomass
retention. The addition of articial support media occupies substantial digester volume, which automatically lowers the digester
efciency. Moreover, the articial biolm support media are vulnerable to clogging caused by manure ber, which impedes
commercialization.
A concept of biolm retention with inuent solids was presented in the authors previous studies (Frear et al., 2010; Wang
et al., 2011). It was reported that anaerobic microorganisms have
a strong afnity to manure ber, which can serve as natural biomass support media in a high rate digester. Biomass retention
using manure ber as natural support media seems a promising
approach for anaerobic treatment of ushed dairy manure. In virtue of no articial biolm support media, the concern regarding
mechanical failure caused by media clogging is removed. Along
with low maintenance, the required digester size and cost are reduced. Anaerobic sequencing batch reactors (ASBRs) are known
to be capable of uncoupling HRT with SRT for biomass retention
with a particular sequence of operation of ASBR exerting selection
pressures to microbes for immobilization (Liu et al., 2005; Wang
et al., 2011). Wang et al. (2011) showed that an ASBR digester,
which retained high concentration of biomass in the form of ber-attached biolm by selection pressure, exhibited comparatively high methane yield and production rate. However,
applications of this technology require technical information for
process design and optimization.
Although simple, the ASBR operation involves complex processes whose design and optimization can be facilitated using
mathematical models. Kinetic modeling, being a useful tool in process analysis, design, and system control can be established by precise determination of kinetic coefcients. Process kinetics also
details the effects of operational factors and reaction environment
on the substrate utilization rates. A variety of kinetic models have
been developed to describe microbial growth kinetics. A rst order
model is the simplest model for microbial growth with the
assumption of rst-order degradation, which has been used often
to describe hydrolysis limited digestion with respect to particulate
substrate (Gavala et al., 2003). Monod model is the most widely
used kinetic model which was developed as a result of empirical
analysis (Monod, 1949). Grau et al. (1975) and Chen and Hashimoto (1978) improved the Monod model by predicting that efuent
substrate concentration is proportional to inuent substrate concentration. However, it was assumed that microbial growth kinet-

K
Y
c
B
B0

M
P
L

dimensionless kinetic parameter of Chen and Hashimoto

model
growth yield coefcient
contois coefcient
volume of methane produced under standard condition
per gram of substrate loaded (L CH4 STP/gVSloaded)
volume of methane produced under standard condition
per gram of substrate loaded at innite retention time (L
CH4 STP/gVSloaded)
volumetric methane production rate (L CH4/L/d)
specic methane productivity (L CH4/gVSloaded)
organic loading rate (gVSloaded/L/d)

ics in anaerobic biolm reactors followed Monod or rst-order

models in most literature (Batstone et al., 2002; Bufre et al.,
1998; Huang and Jih, 1997; Rittmann and McCarty, 2001). The lack
of appropriate models in the literature though shows that
improvements can still be made. For example, it has been hypothesized that the Chen and Hashimoto model is capable of characterizing biolm growth kinetics with an improved performance,
compared to the Monod model, due to its dependence on inuent
substrate concentration.
The main objective of this study was to evaluate the performance and kinetics of the new biomass retention strategy during
psychrophilic ASBR digestion of ushed dairy manure. A kinetic
model with aim to nd a more appropriate biolm growth model
was derived and assessed for substrate utilization and methane
production. Both HRT and OLR (organic loading rate) are considered as the most important parameters for digester operation.
Hence, the effects of HRT and OLR on methane production were
the primary output of the kinetic model.
2. Methods
The aforementioned biomass retention technology for treating
ushed dairy manure at psychrophilic temperature were evaluated
in ve lab scale digesters operated in sequencing batch mode. Kinetic properties of psychrophilic ASBR digesters were then analyzed and a kinetic model was derived for system optimization.
2.1. Feedstock and seed
Fresh dairy manure was collected from the Washington State
University Dairy Center in Pullman, WA, USA and stored at 4 C
prior to use. Before addition to digesters, manure was diluted with
tap water to mimic ushed dairy manure, which resulted in mixed
liquor containing 9.1 g/L total solids (TS) and 7.6 g/L total volatile
solids (VS). Anaerobic sludge containing a microbial community
of hydrolyzing, acid producing, acetate producing and methane
producing microbes was sampled from an anaerobic digester in
the Pullman Wastewater Treatment Facility with TS of 17.1 g/L
and VS of 11.7 g/L.
2.2. Experimental setup and operation
Five digesters (64 cm in height and 10 cm in diameter), each
with working volume of 6 L, were operated as ASBR at respective
cycle times of 2, 4, 6, 8 and 10 days while the other operation conditions remained constant (50% exchange ratio, 5 min settling time

J. Ma et al. / Bioresource Technology 131 (2013) 612

Table 1
Operating condition for ASBR.
Reactor

R1
R2
R3
R4
R5

HRT (d)

4
8
12
16
20

OLR (gVSloaded/L/
d)

Exchange ratio
(%)

Total cycle time (d)

2.0
1.0
0.7
0.5
0.4

50
50
50
50
50

2
4
6
8
10

and 20 days SRT). This operation produced HRT of 4, 8, 12, 16 and

20 days in each digester (Table 1). Settling time was determined
based on the authors previous study to form biolm which attached on the surface of manure ber (Wang et al., 2011). Each digester was mixed with a separate impeller driven by a respective
motor at 100 rpm. Intermittent mixing was carried out with
10 min in every 2 h. Manure and anaerobic sludge were introduced
to each digester at 1:1 volume ratio when experiments started.
Digesters were then placed in a low temperature chamber (22 C)
and operated in sequencing batch mode which consists of ve
stages: lling, reaction, desludge, settling and discharging in one
cycle. At the end of the reaction stage, mixed liquor was discharged
under complete mixed state to control SRT, and supernatant was
discharged after settling stage to control HRT in each digester.
Evaluation of system performance for each HRT was carried out
during pseudo steady state conditions, when biogas production,
methane content and efuent COD variations were less than 10%
(Karim et al., 2005).
2.3. Biochemical analytical methods
TS, VS and COD analyses were done according to Standard
Methods (APHA, 1998). The volume of biogas from the digester
was determined by water displacement method. Content of CH4
and CO2 were determined using a Varian gas chromatograph (Palo
Alto, CA, USA) equipped with a thermal conductivity detector. A
Restek (Bellefonte, PA, USA) shincarbon column (2  1/16 inch)
with silcosteel packing material (100/120 mesh) was used, and
nitrogen served as the carrier gas. Each type of gas was quantied
based on a calibration curve. All samples were measured at the end
of each cycle.

Feeding
(min)

Reaction
(d)

Desludge
(min)

Settling
(min)

Decanting
(min)

5
5
5
5
5

2
4
6
8
10

5
5
5
5
5

5
5
5
5
5

5
5
5
5
5

lm S
b
KS0 1  KS

Kinetic models predicting methane production were derived

assuming digesters operated at steady state conditions. Four model
types were considered in this study in order to choose a model
with appropriate t for microbial growth kinetics during anaerobic
digestion of ushed dairy manure in ASBR digester.
First order Model (Gavala et al., 2003):

rm

dX
QX 0  QX r m V
dt

S0

1
h

lm S
b
KS S

Chen and Hashimoto Model (Chen and Hashimoto, 1978):

By use of each of the above models, steady state efuent substrate concentrations were derived and are listed in Table 2. Taking
the Chen and Hashimoto model as an example, by substituting Eq.
(4) in Eq. (7), efuent substrate concentration can be expressed as

KS0 1 bh
K  11 bh lm h

If B denotes the volume of methane produced at standard condition per gram of substrate loaded to the digester, and B0 is the
volume of methane produced at standard condition per gram of
substrate loaded at innite retention time, then the biodegradable
substrate in the digester will be directly proportional to B0B, and
B0 will be directly proportional to the biodegradable substrate
loading (Chen and Hashimoto, 1978). Therefore, the following relationship can be derived:

The above equation can be rearranged to give:

S0  S
B B0

S0

10

The volumetric methane production rate equals B times OLR:

M
1

BS0
h

11

By use of Eqs. (10) and (11) can be expressed as:

Monod Model (Monod, 1949):

At steady state (dX

0), the above equation can be simplied as
dt

M
b

dX
lX
dt

Thus, mass balance equation for microbial growth can be given

as follows:

Grau Model (Grau et al., 1975):

lm S

Microbial growth mass balance was considered as the basis for

model derivation, and rate of microbial growth can be written as:

S
B0  B

S0
B0

2.4. Development of kinetic model

kS
l
b
S0  S

Cycle time

B0
S0  S
h

12

The volumetric methane production rate with respect to HRT

can be derived by substituting steady state substrate concentration
of efuent into Eq. (12). Using Chen and Hashimoto model as an
example, Eq. (12) can be written as follows:



B0
KS0 1 bh
S0 
K  11 bhlm h
h

13

J. Ma et al. / Bioresource Technology 131 (2013) 612

The volumetric methane production rate with respect to OLR

can be expressed as:


M B0 L 

KLL bS0
K  1L bS0 lm S0


14

The specic methane productivity with respect to HRT can be

expressed as:


P B0 1 

K1 bh
K  11 bhlm h


15

The specic methane productivity with respect to OLR can be

expressed as:


P B0 1 


KL bS0
K  1L bS0 lm S0

16

The VS removal efciency with respect to HRT can be written

as:

E1

K1 bh
K  11 bhlm h

17

The volumetric methane production rate, specic methane productivity and removal efciency with respect to the other three
models were also derived for model comparison and listed in Table
2.
In order to determine B0, mass balance equation of substrate
consumption can be written as:

dS
QS0  QS r s V
dt

18

Rate of substrate consumption

rs

dX
0
k S
dt

19

At steady state (dS

0), efuent substrate concentration can be
dt
expressed as:

S0
0
hk 1

to HRT of 4, 8, 12, 16 and 20 days reached steady state condition,

respectively.
The volumetric biogas productivity during manure bio-methanization was also related to HRT in each digester. The highest volumetric biogas production was observed at the shortest HRT of
4 days (digester R1) with rate of 0.37 L/L/d, while digester R5, running at the longest HRT of 20 days, showed the lowest rate of
0.14 L/L/d. Zaher et al. (2008) reported similar results (volumetric
methane production rate of 0.20 L/L/d at 5 day HRT and 0.10 L/L/
d at 17 day HRT) from a tire supported xed-bed digester treating
ushed dairy manure but under mesophilic temperature. A much
lower rate using a zeolite supported CSTR digester even at mesophilic conditions was obtained by Borja et al. (1994). Powers
et al. (1997) reported a xed-bed digester with a low methane production at 2.3 day HRT. The manure ber supported psychrophilic
ASBR digester showed good performance as compared against
them.
Biolm was expected to be formed in all digesters due to selection pressure in terms of settling time (Wang et al., 2011). However, washout of biomass was present and digester failure
occurred when the HRT was further shortened to 2 days, which is
because too short of an HRT at start-up period exceeded the microorganism growth limits (Rittmann and McCarty, 2001). A practical
limit with a minimum HRT of 4 days was required at the start-up
period for biomass retention within the digester.
It should be noted that, compared with our previous studies, the
present study was conducted under psychrophilic temperature
(22 C) instead of mesophilic condition (35 C). However, the digester in this study showed a comparable performance with that
of a mesophilic digester (volumetric biogas production rate of
0.25 L/L/d and specic methane productivity of 0.20 L/gVSloaded),
indicating that biomass retention provides a cost-effective method
for uncompromised anaerobic digestion rate at lower temperature
with less energy consumption due to the reduction of heat required (Connaughton et al., 2006; Lettinga et al., 2001).
3.2. Effect of OLR on biogas production

20

Substituting Eq. (20) into Eq. (12) yields:

S0
h
1

M B0 B0 k0

21

B0 of manure depends on the species, ration, age of the manure,

collection, and storage and bedding material. Values of B0 for dairy
manure range from 0.21 to 0.27 (Chen and Hashimoto, 1978; Husain, 1998). B0 of ushed dairy manure used in this present study
was determined by plotting HRT versus S0/M according to Eq.
(21). The slope of the curve was used to calculate B0 as 0.24 L
CH4/gVSloaded.
An endogenous decay constant b of 0.03/d was used for the
model simulations (Husain, 1998). Values of kinetic parameters
for each model were estimated using the Curve Fitting function
in SigmaPlot 11 (Systat Software, Inc.) using the MarquardtLevenberg algorithm with 200 iterations.
3. Results and discussion
3.1. Effect of HRT on biogas production
Biogas generation in the ASBR digesters with different HRT is
represented in Fig. 1. It can be seen that the time needed to reach
steady state condition is associated with HRT. The longer the HRT,
the more time required for start-up. After operating periods of 34,
62, 72 and 80 days, digesters R1, R2, R3, R4 and R5 corresponding

OLR in each digester varied according to different HRT since the

inuent substrate concentration is xed. The effects of OLR on volumetric methane production rate and specic methane productivity were plotted in Fig. 2A. Specic methane productivity showed
an inverse relationship with respect to OLR, reducing slightly until
OLR reached 1 gVSloaded/L/d at which point further OLR extension
led to steep drops in specic methane productivity.
The volumetric methane production rate and specic methane
productivity are often two competing performance parameters.
An increasing OLR favors volumetric methane production rate
but leads to impaired specic methane productivity. It seems a
compromise in OLR should be employed with an OLR of around
1 gVSloaded/L/d yielding high values for both parameters. The same
situation is applied HRT with a HRT around 46 days being favored
for both parameters (Fig. 2B).
3.3. Kinetic modeling
3.3.1. Evaluation of kinetic models
First-order, Grau, Monod and Chen and Hashimoto models were
chosen to determine the most appropriate model for the kinetics of
methane production from ushed dairy manure in an ASBR digester. Results are presented in Fig. 3 and tting accuracy is listed in
Table 3. On the account of poor correlation with data sets, the
Monod model was not recommended for kinetic analysis. Furthermore, the Monod and rst-order model failed to predict the volumetric methane production rate decreases at extremely short
HRT, which led to reduced accuracy in the simulation. The limita-

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J. Ma et al. / Bioresource Technology 131 (2013) 612

Table 2
Kinetics models used in this study.
Kinetics coefcients
Specic growth rate
Efuent substrate concentration
Volumetric methane production rate
Specic methane productivity
Removal efciency

First-order

kS
S0 S

S0 1bh
hkb1

b

Grau

Monod

lm S

S0 1bh
lm h

S0



S0 1bh
M Bh0 S0  hkb1


1bh
P B0 1  hkb1

M Bh0 S0 


h
P B0 1  1b
l h

1bh
E 1  hkb1

h
E 1  1b
l h

tion of the Monod model resides in the efuent substrate concentration (S) being independent of the inuent substrate concentration (S0), with organic loading notably having been found to
affect digester performance. Saravanan and Sreekrishnan (2006)
pointed out that the assumption of substrate degradation described within the Monod model is questionable in biolm reactors. The Chen and Hashimoto model and Grau model explicitly
account for the inuent substrate concentration, so they are able
to overcome this constraint and predict S as a function of S0, with
efuent substrate concentration being directly proportional to the
inuent substrate concentration. The Chen and Hashimoto model
successfully t the peak volumetric methane production rate at
4 days HRT and the microorganisms washout at 2 days HRT. The
Chen and Hashimoto model included the inuence of S0 in the kinetic expression in order to express mass transfer limitations
(Chen and Hashimoto, 1978). Mass transfer limitation can lead l
to vary with initial substrate concentration. Therefore, the Chen
and Hashimoto model was selected for development of a derived
model to conduct the kinetic analysis for an ASBR digester treating
ushed dairy manure.
3.3.2. Model simulation
In the derived model, values of lm and K were the variables
identied to characterize the digester performance and for tting.
lm is the maximum specic growth rate of microorganisms expressed as per day. K is a dimensionless kinetic parameter indicating digester performance. K is equal to Yc, where Y is growth yield
coefcient and c is the Contois coefcient. From the data presented
in Fig. 2, it can be seen that the experimental data and derived
model predictions are in good agreement (R2 > 95%), showing the
validity of the model. The lm and K values calculated from the derived model are 0.36 d1 and 0.23, respectively.
The value of lm is at the lower side of the wide range (0.041
0.912 d1) reported for mixed and pure cultures of methanogens

S0 1bh
lm h

lm S
l KS0 1KS
b

l K S S  b

b

Chen&Hashimoto

lm S

M Bh0 S0 


P B0 1  S0 hKls 1bh
bS0

KS0 1bh
S K11bh
lm h


KS0 1bh
M Bh0 S0  K11bh
lm h


K1bh
P B0 1  K11bh
l h

E 1  S0 hKls 1bh
bS0

K1bh
E 1  K11bh
l

K s 1bh
hlm b1

K s 1bh
hlm b1
m

mh

at temperature between 3537 C (Pavlostathis and Giraldogomez,

1991). This may be due to the lower temperature and mixed culture used in the kinetic coefcient determination. K is an indicator
of the overall performance of the digester (Chen, 1983). An increasing K indicates inhibition of fermentation while low K indicates rapid substrate degradation. K value for typical digesters range from
0.6 to 2.0 with a mean of 1.06 (Hashimoto, 1982). The K value obtained from this study is lower compared with other studies,
implying only short HRT is needed for anaerobic digestion of
ushed dairy manure in an ASBR digester. Furthermore, K and lm
were reported to be independent of the inuent substrate concentration for diluted organic waste stream (Chen and Hashimoto,
1978). Hence, the lower K value could be attributed to high amount
of biomass retained within ASBR digester.
From simulated proles, digestion performance, as indicated by
volumetric methane production rate, was highest at near 4 days or
at an organic loading rate of 2 gVSloaded/L/d (Fig. 2). Digester performance can also be represented by specic methane productivity
with this indicator pointing to maximums at 520 days and OLR
of between 0.51.3 gVSloaded/L/day (Fig. 2). Comparison of the
two performance indicators shows that an ideal HRT for ASBR feeding with ushed dairy manure would be around 46 days while
OLR can either be limited for enhanced specic methane productivity or slightly increased for improved volumetric performance.
3.3.3. Model prediction
The derived model was then used to predict digester performance, namely efuent VS concentration and VS removal efciency. As Fig. 4 shows, the model successfully predicted efuent
VS concentration with R2 of 0.91. However, the calculated results
of VS removal efciency do not t well with the measurements.
This is also because inuent substrate concentration was not included in the VS removal efciency calculation equation. Although
Chen and Hashimoto (1980) states that the treatment efciency
does not depend on inuent substrate concentration, it was not
validated by experimental data of the present research.
3.4. Process performance comparison

Fig. 1. Volumetric biogas production rate at various HRT.

Comparisons of the operation parameters and the methane productivities obtained in this study with the performance data from
other anaerobic biolm reactors treating dairy manure are presented in Table 4. As can be seen, except for this study, a variety
of different types of external articial biolm support media were
employed in those anaerobic biolm digesters to enhance biomass
retention. It is clear from Table 4 that ASBR using manure ber as
support media not only improved methane production but also reduced the necessary HRT and temperature to achieve a comparable
treating efciency. This digester expanded the capacity of anaerobic digestion to dilute solid wastes treatment with no requirement
of prior solids separation or the risk of biolm support media clogging. The specic methane productivity obtained in this study was
higher than most of others as shown in Table 4. It should be noted
that this high performance was actually attained at relatively low

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J. Ma et al. / Bioresource Technology 131 (2013) 612

Table 3
Summary of model comparison with kinetic coefcients and tting accuracy.
Models

Kinetic coefcients

R2

SRSEa

First-order
Grau
Monod

k = 0.43
lm = 0.67 day1
lm = 0.07 day1
Ks = 0.24 g VS
lm = 0.36 day1
K = 0.23

0.92
0.96
0.76

0.073
0.032
0.102

0.99

0.011

Chen & Hashimoto

a

The sum of residual squared error.

Fig. 4. Changes of efuent substrate concentration and treatment efciency with

derived model, (d) efuent VS data, (h) VS removal efciency data, and ()
predicted prole.

Fig. 2. Changes of volumetric methane production rate and specic methane

productivity against HRT and OLR, (d) volumetric methane production rate, (s)
specic methane productivity, and () simulation prole.

Fig. 3. Comparison of simulation with different kinetics models.

HRT and low temperature so that this digester may be more costeffectiveness than others.
3.5. Implications for dairy AD process design
A high rate AD process driven by high biomass retention instead
of mesophilic temperature (35 C) appears to be an economical ap-

proach for methane recovery from ushed dairy manure (Frear

et al., 2010). This study demonstrated a new biomass retention
strategy with biolm supported by manure ber. Fibrous solids
content in ushed dairy manure act as a natural biolm support
medium for high biomass retention as opposed to using external
media that might clog and add cost. As attributed to high concentration of biomass, the performance of this technology at psychrophilic temperature is comparable to that of other technology under
mesophilic conditions. Taking advantage of successful in vitro biomass immobilization on dairy manure brous solids, ASBR might
be employed as an optimum means to achieve high rate AD in
ushed dairy manure.
This novel biomass immobilization process expands the capacity of anaerobic digestion to dilute solids wastes with no need for
prior solids separation and no hazard for media clogging. As a result of requiring no articial biolm support media, the digester
structure will be very simple and of lower cost. Sequencing batch
mode operation procedures of ASBR are tailored to cater to noncontinuous manure production and collection practices. The multi-feeding procedures are well adapted to infrequent barn ushing.
Owing to simple digester conguration and low maintenance
requirement, this technology is suitable for application to both
small farms and large CAFOs (conned animal feeding operations).
This technology is also able to handle a wide range of TS from 1% to
5% caused by varying ushing intensity and water usage. The kinetic model and kinetic parameters obtained from this study can
be used for design and optimization of the process. A six-day
HRT and an OLR of 1.01.5 gVSloaded/L/day are recommended by
the kinetic model prediction. At optimized conditions, a volumetric
methane production rate of 0.24 L/L/d of and specic methane productivity of 0.19 L/gVSloaded are expected.

12

J. Ma et al. / Bioresource Technology 131 (2013) 612

Table 4
Performance data for different anaerobic biolm reactors treating dairy manure.

a
b
c
d
e
f

Digester type

Inuent
(g VS/L)

OLR
(g VS/L/d)

Temperature
(C)

HRT
(d)

Methane
content (%)

Specic
methane
productivity
(L/g VSloaded)

Literature

ASBR with manure ber as support media

Fixed-lm reactor with spherical plastic
trickling lter media
Anaerobic hybrid reactor with oating support media
Fixed bed reactor with automobile tires
CSTR with zeolite support
Fixed bed reactor with tire rubber and zeolite

7.60
1.30a

1.26
4.07

22
2324

6.0
2.3

73.4
65.0

0.19
0.10

This study
Powers et al. (1997)

9.87b
13.83c
47.10c
75.00

7.30
2.77d
9.42d
4.40

36
35
35
2226

15.0
5.0
5.0
5.5

63.5
NA e
NA
NA

0.19
0.19
0.12
0.18

f
f
f

Demirer and Chen (2005)

Zaher et al. (2008)
Borja et al. (1994)
Umana et al. (2008)

%TS.
%VS.
g COD/L.
g COD/L/d.
Not available.
L/g COD loaded.

4. Conclusion
A successful biomass retention technology for treating ushed
dairy manure at psychrophilic temperature was presented in this
study. A Chen and Hashimoto based model gave the best simulation with R2 of 0.99. The simulation of kinetic modeling indicated
the best HRT and OLR were 46 days and 0.51.3 gVSloaded/L/day,
respectively. Extended SRT was important to retain high concentration of biomass at low temperature, and to enhance the digester
performance. When compared with other research, this technology
exhibited a better performance in terms of specic methane productivity while at shorter HRT and lower temperature.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank the Washington State
University Agricultural Research Center and China-US international collaborative project (No. 2011DFA90800) for funding this
study.
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