In this study, anaerobic digestion tests for municipal solid wastes were performed in order to estimate their methane production rates. To simulate methane production rate, the first derivatives of the sigmoidal equations were calculated. The sigmoidal equations used were Gompertz and Logistic equations. Also, diauxic growth was employed to simulate methane production rate from municipal solid wastes. The equations were fitted to simulate methane production rate by nonlinear regression with a Marquardt-Levenberg algorithm. This is a statistical analysing methodology to minimize the sum of the squares of the differences between the predicted and measured values. Data fittings obtained by using the equations were compared statistically by using the RMSE (Root mean square error) and AIC (Akaike's information criterion). The equations derived from sigmoidal equations successfully described methane production rate for municipal solid wastes. RMSE and AIC were decreased significantly for the equations considering diauxic growth, compared to the equations without diauxic growth. These results showed that the equations derived from sigmoidal equations with diauxic growth can be a useful tool to simulate methane production rate for municipal solid wastes.

Interest in the measurement of siloxane which reduces energy efficiency of biogas, has increased with its market extend. Even though the impinger absorption method takes long sampling time of 2-3 hours and need a complicated equipment, it has been typically used for the sampling method of siloxane. This study was conducted to apply the gas bag sampling method with tedlar bag and aluminium bag for improving the method of siloxane sampling. To compare efficiencies of siloxane sampling, the manufactured gas, landfill gas, and digestion gas were used as sample gases. According to the result, materials of gas bags did not cause measurement error and there was no loss of siloxane by adsorption on the inner surface of gas bag. The result of D4 calibration in the tedlar bag, showed higher than 0.99 in the coefficient of determination. In case of digestion gas, the analysis results of two samples collected by the tedlar bag and the impinger absorption were almost same. The differences of analysis result between landfill gas and digestion gas were considered due to the short sampling time and the absence of gas storage tank.

This study was conducted to improve the analytical method of siloxanes in biogas. Methanol and hexane were tested as absorption solvents of the impinger absorption method, and also the hexane extraction for pretreatment of sample was evaluated. Manufactured gas contained siloxanes of 50 ppm was completely absorbed by the methanol impinger absorption. The absorption efficiency of biogas containing only 2 ppm, however, was maximum 84%. As the condensate on the first impinger increased, the absorption rate of methanol was decreased. The hexane extraction method of the sample was considered to proper the method of moisture removal. The hexane extraction result showed the high recovery factor and the low relative standard deviation. It is suggested that the suitable choice of solvent and pretreatment is required, as the analysis result of siloxane sample may be differentiated depending on the type of biogas or the sampling point.

In this study, anaerobic co-digestion experiments for mixtures consisting of sewage sludge with food wastewater and livestock wastewater were conducted to assess the methane yields, the volatile solids (VS) removal rates and the dynamic kinetics. An augmented simplex centroid design (ASCD) was employed to design the mixing rate of organic wastes for the anaerobic co-digestion. Also, synergistic effects on the anaerobic co-digestion were studied using models obtained by the ASCD. As a result, synergistic effects were not observed in terms of methane yield and VS removal rate. It was just showed that there was a linear relationship between the cumulative methane yield and the mixing rate of food wastewater. The results might be attributable that the sewage sludge and the livestock wastewater had very lower C/N ratio compared with food wastewater that had a C/N ratio within a range required for a correctly operating anaerobic co-digestion. Therefore, increasing mixing rates of food wastewater increased the methane yield and VS removal rate, but there was not a synergistic effect by the anaerobic co-digestion.

In this study, optimization of anaerobic co-digestion for food and livestock wastes was studied by an experimental design method. A central composite design (CCD) was applied in designing experiments. Selected two independent variables for this study were initial substrate concentration and mixing rate of livestock wastes. The ranges of experiment for initial substrate concentration and mixing rate of livestock wastes were 2~10 g-VS/L and 0~100%, respectively. Selected responses were methane yield, maximum methane production rate and volatile solids (VS) removal rate. The experimental design was analyzed using a response surface methodology (RSM). Models obtained by the RSM were analyzed by analysis of variance (ANOVA). ANOVA demonstrated that the models were highly significant. Optimal conditions obtained for the models were initial substrate concentration of 2.1 g-VS/L and mixing rate of livestock wastes of 48.8%, respectively. The measured values under the optimal conditions were well in agreement with the predicted values from the models. Thus, it showed that the CCD and RSM were appropriate for determination of an optimal mixing condition in the anaerobic co-digestion process for food and livestock wastes.

The objective of this study was to assess the affects of various solid waste landfill methods on mass balance of carbon. Four lysimeters simulated a conventional landfill (Lys-A), a landfill recirculated only fresh leachate (Lys-B), and two landfills recirculated leachate after pretreating with ASBR (Lys-C and Lys-D) were operated over 1,600 days. Lys-D was recirculated two times of pretreated leachate volume than that of Lys-C. Mass balance of carbon was calculated considering leachate and biogas production for each lysimeter. Lys-C and Lys-D showed that there was an increase of about 3 times in total amount of COD recovered as methane than Lys-A. This results might be attributable to the activated methanogenic bacteria and the high pH of pretreated leachate. In terms of mass balance of carbon, amount of carbon converted to landfill gas in Lys-B (25.20 g/kg-dry waste) was bigger than that of Lys-A (23.64 g/kg-dry waste), while carbon conversion rate to landfill gas for Lys-A and Lys-B showed 4.80% and 4.71%, respectively. It is assumed that only fresh leachate recirculation method can increase amount of carbon converted to landfill gas resulting from the biodegradation of organic carbon in recirculated leachate. However, in comparison with the conventional landfill method, this method should not accelerate hydrolysis of carbon from the wastes. Carbon conversion rate in the landfill recirculated leachate after pretreating with ASBR was increased due to accelerated anaerobic metabolism processes of the microbes. In Lys-C and Lys-D, about 5.9% of carbon was converted to landfill gas. Therefore, it could be seen that the landfill recirculated leachate after pretreating with ASBR could enhance carbon conversion to landfill gas more than the conventional landfill or the landfill recirculated only fresh leachate.