Herein , the effect of changes in the organic loading rate in anaerobic digestion was evaluated. The experiment was carried out by a laboratory -scale semi-continuous stirred tank reactor, and feedstock was food-waste leached. The organic loading rate was increased by 0.5 kgVS/m3 in each phase from 1.0 kgVS/m3 to 4.0 kgVS/m3. At the end of the operation, to check the failure of the reactor, the organic loading rate was increased by 1.0 kgVS/m3 in each phase and reached 6.0 kgVS/m3. This shows that the biogas yield decreased as organic loading rate increased. Biogas production seemed to be unstable at 3.5–6.0 kgVS/m3. Moreover, biogas production dramatically fell to approximately 0 mL at 6.0 kgVS/m3, which was decided as the operation failure on the 16th day of the las tphase. The result of the reactor analysis shows that the cumulation of volatile fatty acid increased as the organic loading rate increased. This seems to occur due to the decreasein pH in the reactor and led to extinction of anaerobic bacteria, which were the biogas products. Although the buffer compound (alkalinity) could prevent the decline in pH, the concentration of alkalinity was found to be lacking at a high organic loading rate

A bioelectrochemical anaerobic digester for food waste was developed by installing an anode (−250 mV vs. Ag/AgCl) and a cathode (−550 mV vs. Ag/AgCl) inside a conventional lab-scale anaerobic digester. The performance of the bioelectrochemical anaerobic digester was investigated at different organic loading rates of 0.70-4.25 g VS/L.d. The bioelectrochemical anaerobic digester was rapidly stabilized within 25 days after start up, and at an organic loading rate of less than 1.97 g VS/L.d., state variables such as pH (7.0-7.8) and alkalinity (10-12 g/L as CaCO3) were very stable. The volatile fatty acids were maintained at 400-500 mg HAc/L with their main component being acetic acid (80%). At an organic loading rate of 1.97 g VS/L.d, the performance was significantly high in terms of the specific methane production rate (1.37 L CH4/L.d) and the methane content in the biogas (around 74%). The removal efficiencies of volatile solid and chemical oxygen demand were also as high as 80.1% and 85.1%, respectively, and the overall energy efficiency was 91.2%. However, the process stability deteriorated at an organic loading rate of 4.25 g VS/L.d.