Environmental Technology

ISSN: 0959-3330 (Print) 1479-487X (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/tent20

Performance assessment of two-stage anaerobic

digestion of kitchen wastes

Zhang Bo & He Pin-jing

To cite this article: Zhang Bo & He Pin-jing (2014) Performance assessment of two-stage
anaerobic digestion of kitchen wastes, Environmental Technology, 35:10, 1277-1285, DOI:
10.1080/09593330.2013.866169

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09593330.2013.866169

Accepted author version posted online: 15

Nov 2013.
Published online: 17 Dec 2013.

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 Environmental Technology, 2014
Vol. 35, No. 10, 1277–1285, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09593330.2013.866169

Performance assessment of two-stage anaerobic digestion of kitchen wastes

Zhang Boa,b∗ and He Pin-jingb
a School
of Environmental Science & Engineering, Shanghai Jiaotong University, 800 Dongchuan Road, Shanghai 200240,
People’s Republic of China; b State Key Laboratory of Pollution Control & Resources Reuse, Tongji University, Shanghai 200092,
People’s Republic of China
(Received 10 April 2013; accepted 9 November 2013 )

This study is aimed at investigating the performance of the two-phase anaerobic digestion of kitchen wastes in a lab-scale
setup. The semi-continuous experiment showed that the two-phase anaerobic digestion of kitchen wastes had a bioconversion
rate of 83%, biogas yield of 338 mL·(g chemical oxygen demand (COD))−1 and total solid conversion of 63% when the
entire two-phase anaerobic digestion process was subjected to an organic loading rate (OLR) of 10.7 g·(L d)−1 . In the
hydrolysis–acidogenesis process, the efficiency of solubilization decreased from 72.6% to 41.1%, and the acidogenesis
Downloaded by [University of Canberra] at 07:00 23 October 2017

efficiency decreased from 31.8% to 17.8% with an increase in the COD loading rate. On the other hand, the performance of
the subsequent methanogenic process was not susceptible to the increase in the feeding COD loading rate in the hydrolysis–
acidogenesis stage. Lactic acid was one of the main fermentation products, accounting for over 40% of the total soluble COD
in the fermentation liquid. The batch experiments indicated that the lactic acid was the earliest predominant fermentation
product, and distributions of fermentation products were pH dependent. Results showed that increasing the feeding OLR of
kitchen wastes made the two-stage anaerobic digestion process more effective. Moreover, there was a potential improvement
in the performance of anaerobic digestion of kitchen wastes with a corresponding improvement in the hydrolysis process.
Keywords: two-phase; kitchen wastes; anaerobic digestion; hydrolysis–acidogenesis; methanogenesis

1. Introduction wastes, two-stage wet anaerobic digestion has usually been

Kitchen wastes are one of the major components of the
municipal organic wastes. Considering the city of Shang-
hai for instance, about 3 million tons of kitchen wastes are
discharged each year, which accounts for about 58% of the
total municipal solid wastes.[1,2] Kitchen wastes are the
main sources of decay, odour and leachate due to their high
volatile solids (VSs) and moisture content.[3] Regulations
and laws on the discharge of kitchen wastes have been grad-
ually established in China to promote the reduction and
recovery of kitchen wastes. Anaerobic digestion is consid-
ered to be an appropriate technology for kitchen wastes
considering its biodegradability, recovery of energy and
structural strength such as moisture content, bulk density
and compressibility, compared with landfill, incineration
and composting. It has been reported that the anaerobic
digestion technology is effective for the reduction of kitchen
wastes and recovery of methane biogas.[4–9]
Two-stage anaerobic digestion, compared with its
single-stage counterpart, could separately optimize the con-
ditions for the hydrolytic and acidogenic microorganisms as
well as for the acetogenic–methanogenic microorganisms,
and thus improve the stability of the system.[10–12] Due to
the high moisture and high organic matter content of kitchen
employed in methane recovery from kitchen wastes. Cho
and Park [13] applied the two-stage anaerobic digestion
process to experiments on Korean food wastes, Bouallagui
et al. [14] on fruit and vegetable wastes and Wang et al.
[15,16] developed a hybrid bioreactor for food wastes. Most
of these studies focused on the evaluation of the ultimate
bioenergy production potential. However, there is lack of
information regarding the limiting factors and mass balance
of the two-stage anaerobic digestion process.
It is generally considered that the slowest step in a
process is the limiting factor. Anaerobic degradation of
cellulose-poor wastes such as putrefactive organic wastes,
e.g. kitchen wastes, is limited by methanogenesis rather
than by hydrolysis in a single-stage anaerobic digestion
process.[14] However, it is still not clear which step, hydrol-
ysis or methanogenesis, is the limiting step for the two-stage
anaerobic digestion process of kitchen wastes, because
kitchen wastes were considered to be easily biodegradable.
In the two-stage anaerobic digestion process, the solubi-
lization efficiency and distribution of organic acids in the
hydrolysis–acidogenesis process determine the subsequent
methanogenesis efficiency. The performance of two-stage
anaerobic digestion can be enhanced by regulating and

∗ Corresponding author. Email: zhangbo214@sjtu.edu.cn

© 2013 Taylor & Francis

 1278 Z. Bo and H. Pin-jing
controlling the solubilization process, such as controlling
pH, bulking agent and inoculum to substrate ratio.[17,18]
Organic acids produced in biowastes digestion are mainly
volatile fatty acids (VFAs), and their production rate and
species distribution are dependent on pH and oxidative
and reductive potential in the surrounding media for the
microorganisms.[19–21] However, for kitchen wastes, lac-
tic acid is also one of the main organic acids, constitut-
ing approximately 50% of the chemical oxygen demand
(COD) in the hydrolysis–acidogenesis liquid. In addition,
its production is considered to have an adverse impact on
the following methanogenesis.[11,19,22,23] However, the
VFAs were paid more attention in the past work; it is rarely
reported for the role of lactic acid in the two-stage anaerobic
digestion of kitchen wastes.[24,25]
To have a full understanding of the two-phase anaerobic
digestion process of kitchen wastes, this study investigated
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the hydrolysis–acidogenesis process of kitchen wastes and
methanogenesis of the hydrolysis–acidogenesis liquid in
batch and semi-continuous mode. The pH, VFAs, lactic
acid, biogas constituents at different organic loading rates
(OLRs) in the hydrolysis–acidogenesis process, the COD
conversion efficiency, biogas production rate and the con-
stituents of organic acids in the effluent in the methanogenic
process were analysed. In addition, mass balance analysis
was also carried out to further assess the performance of the
two-stage anaerobic digestion of kitchen wastes.
2. Materials and method
2.1. Origin and characteristics of kitchen wastes
The kitchen wastes collected from a student restaurant
mainly contained cooked rice, vegetables, meat, eggs, pota-
toes and common salt; the major characteristics of which
are shown in Table 1. The total solid (TS) content and
VS were 20% and 19%, respectively. The ratio of total
organic carbon (TOC), total nitrogen and total phosphate
was 100:4.16:0.25. The mean pH of feeding kitchen wastes
was as low as 3.9 due to natural acidogenesis. The kitchen
wastes were composed of 13% proteins, 10% lipids and
70% carbohydrate. The collected wastes were ground and
homogenized in a blender and were stored at 4◦ C before
feeding.
Table 1. Characteristics of kitchen wastes.
Parameters Value
TS (%) 20 ± 3.5
VS (%) 19 ± 2.3
Carbohydrates (%TS) 70 ± 2.1
Protein (%TS) 13 ± 2.1
Lipids (%TS) 10 ± 1.5
pH 3.9 ± 0.1
C/N/P 100:4.16:0.25
2.2. Two-stage anaerobic digestion operation
Anaerobic digestion of kitchen wastes was conducted in
a two-phase anaerobic system. The working volumes of
the hydrolysis–acidogenesis reactor and the methanogenic
reactor were 2 and 1.6 L, respectively. The two reactors were
placed in a chemostat room under a temperature of 35◦ C.
The reactors were fed intermittently and operated under
a cycle of 12 h including 30 min for feeding, 11 h for reac-
tion and 30 min for sedimentation and sludge removal. The
acidified kitchen wastes in the hydrolysis reactor were first
centrifuged with the supernatant later being pumped into the
subsequent methanogenic reactor, while the solid fractions
are being recycled into the hydrolysis–acidogenesis reac-
tor. Both the hydrolysis–acidogenesis and methanogenic
reactors were mixed by recycling the effluent.
The kitchen wastes were diluted with tap water until
reaching a TS of 100 g L−1 . The feeding volume of kitchen
wastes was increased from 10 mL to 20, 40, 60, 80 and
100 mL in every cycle. The methanogenic reactor effluent
was recycled into the feeding mixture for the hydrolysis–
acidogenesis stage to control the feeding flow volume at
400 mL and hydraulic retention time (HRT) on 5 d. The
HRT in the methanogenic stage was maintained on 4 d.
No extra inoculum was introduced into the hydrolysis–
acidogenesis reactor.
The methanogenic reactor was inoculated with
mesophilic-digested sludge obtained from a wastewater
plant’s sludge digester located in Shanghai, China. The
sludge mixed liquor suspended solid was maintained at
10 g L−1 . The sludge in the methanogenic reactor was ini-
tially cultivated with a synthetic medium with glucose and
sodium acetate as the carbon source, ammonium chloride
as the nitrogen source and dipotassium hydrogen phos-
phate as the phosphorus source. The COD, N and P ratio
was 200:5:1. The fresh synthetic medium with a COD of
25 g L−1 was fed once a day and the HRT controlled on
5 d. When about 87% of the feeding COD was converted to
CH4 at a loading rate of 5 g·(L d)−1 , the start-up period was
considered to be complete.
The whole experiment was carried out over six
runs (Run1: OLR = 2.3 g · (L d)−1 ; Run2: OLR = 4.1 g ·
(L d)−1 ; Run3: OLR = 6.3 g · (L d)−1 ; Run4: OLR =
8.4 g · (L d)−1 ; Run5: OLR = 10.7 g · (L d)−1 and Run6:
OLR = 13.1 g · (L d)−1 ). For each OLR to the hydrolysis–
acidogenesis reactor, the kitchen wastes were prepared for
the entire experiment, hence maintaining the same feeding
COD concentration.
2.3. Batch experiments of the hydrolysis–acidogenesis
of kitchen wastes
The batch experiments were conducted to evaluate the vari-
ations in pH, VFA and lactic acid as the functions of time in
the hydrolysis–acidogenesis stage. The batch experiments
were performed for kitchen wastes with 12.5% TS in 500 ml
 Environmental Technology
glass-flask reactors at a constant temperature of 35◦ C. Three
identical reactors were employed with two reactors being
batch operated for 15 days at controlled-pH values of 5 and
7, with the third reactor without pH control serving as the
control. The flasks were sealed with neoprene bags and sil-
icone rubber sealant and agitated in a water bath shaker at
100 rpm. The flasks were connected to inverted glass tubes
filled with water acidified to pH 2. Biogas was collected
by water displacement. About 300 ml of kitchen wastes
were placed into every flask, and no extra inoculum was
introduced into the reactors. The pH was monitored with
a pH meter, and NaOH (5 mol L−1 ) and HCl (5 mol L−1 )
were automatically added to control the pH at a desired
value.
2.4. Analytical methods
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pH, TS, VS, COD, NH+ 4 -N and TP were analysed in
accordance with the Standard Methods.[26] TOC was mea-
sured by catalytic oxidation on a multi-N/C 3000 analyser
(Vario TOC, German). The protein content was deter-
mined based on Kjeldahl nitrogen, which was measured
by acid hydrolysis of the insoluble organic nitrogen and
the Kjeldahl nitrogen titration procedure.[26] The analy-
sis of the digestion and distillation process was carried
out using the nitrogen analyser (BÜCHI, Digestion Unit
K-424; BÜCHI, distillation Unit B-324). The measured
Kjeldahl nitrogen was multiplied by 6.25 to give the crude
protein content.[27] Lipids concentration was determined
gravimetrically after extraction of lipids by petroleum ether
according to the Soxlett extraction method.[27] Carbohy-
drate in the wastes was determined in accordance with the
phenol–sulphuric acid method.[28] The VFA and lactic acid
were determined by a high-performance liquid chromatog-
raphy (Agilent 2010A, USA) equipped with a C18 column.
Gas chromatography (GC; Shimadzu GC-14B, Japan) was
used to determine the biogas composition. The GC was
equipped with a 3 mm × 2 m TDX-102 filled column and
a thermal conductivity detector. For the determination of
Na, K and Ca in the liquid phase, the sample was diluted
and then filtered through a 4.4-μm paper and a 0.45-
μm membrane filter. The filtrate was analysed by means
of an inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spec-
trophotometer (Jarrell-Ash ICAP 9000, Fisher Scientific,
USA).
2.5. Calculation methods of solubilization efficiency
and acidogenesis efficiency
The efficiencies of solubilization and acidogenesis were
calculated as follows:
Solubilization efficiency
Output soluble COD (g)
= %
Total input COD (g)
1279
Acidogenesis efficiency
Output VFA(calculated as COD, g)
= %
Total input COD (g)
3. Results and discussion
3.1. Hydrolysis–acidogenesis process
3.1.1. Solubilization efficiency and acidogenesis
efficiency
The variations in pH, VFA and COD concentration in
the hydrolysis–acidogenesis liquid with OLR increases are
shown in Figure 1(a). In addition, the average operational
result in every run of the hydrolysis–acidogenesis stage is
summarized in Table 2.
Although the pH initially declined gradually with
the increasing COD loading rate from Run 1 to 3, the
steady state of pH at about 5 could be maintained, which
was attributed to the recirculation of the methanogenic
effluent in Run 4–6. The methanogenic effluent pro-
vided the bicarbonate alkalinity for pH buffering in the
hydrolysis–acidogenesis process and could introduce anaer-
obic activated sludge into the hydrolysis–acidogenesis
reactor.[29–31]
As shown in Figure 1(a and b), and Table 2, despite
the VFA and COD concentrations increasing to 12.1 and
33.8 g L−1 in Run 5, respectively, the solubilization and
acidogenesis efficiencies showed an obvious decrease with
increase in the COD loading rate. The solubilization effi-
ciency was kept at about 70% in Run 1–3, about 60%
in Run 4 and 5 and about 40% in Run 6. The acido-
genesis efficiency also changed gradually from 31.8% to
17.8%. This showed that the performance of the hydrolysis–
acidogenesis stage in two-phase anaerobic digestion was
susceptible to increases in the COD loading rate.
3.1.2. Distribution of hydrolysis–acidogenesis products
The two-phase anaerobic digestion process is able to detect
the distribution of fermentation products, thus making
it possible to clarify the fermentation products of the
hydrolysis–acidogenesis stage and the feeding substrate
constituents of the methanogenic stage. The distribution of
hydrolysis–acidogenesis products at different COD load-
ing rates is shown in Figure 1(b). The VFA and lactic
acid were the main constituents of organic acids. Despite
the decrease in acidogenesis efficiency, there was no obvi-
ous decrease in VFA to the soluble COD ratio. However,
the lactic acid concentration in the soluble COD increased
gradually with increases in OLR from Run 1 to 4, and
constituted about 40% of the output soluble COD in Run
4–6. In addition, as seen in Figure 1(b), the ratio of total
hydrolysis–acidogenesis products to soluble output COD
showed an increase with the increase in the COD loading
rate. A ratio greater than 80% was attained for Run 4–6.
This implied that the accumulation of monomeric products
 1280 Z. Bo and H. Pin-jing

(a) 20 40
Run1 Run2 Run3 Run4 Run5 Run6
35
16
30

pH and OLR(g.(L.d)–1

COD and VFA(g.L–1)

12 25

20
8 15

10
4
5

0 0
0 20 40 60 80 100 120
Time (d)
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OLR VFA
pH COD

(b)
13.4 VFA(43%)

10.7 VFA(35%)
OLR(g.(L.d)–1)

8.4 VFA(40%)
7
6.3 VFA(37%) Ethanol
Butyric acid
4.1 VFA(35%) Propionic acid
Acetic acid
2.3 VFA(44%) Lactic acid

0 20 40 60 80 100
Fraction of fermentation products in output soluble COD(%)

(c) 100 1.0

H2
N2
80 0.8
CH4
H2,N2,CH4and CO2(%)

Biogas productivity

CO2
60 0.6
(L.(L.d)–1)

Biogas productivity
40 0.4

20 0.2

0 0.0
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14

Feeding COD loading rate

(g.(L.d) –1)
Figure 1. Hydrolysis and acidogenesis of kitchen wastes in semi-continuous experiments: (a) pH, VFA and COD; (b) constituents of
soluble output COD and (c) biogas constituents, at different feeding COD loading rates.

rarely occurred. Whereas the fermentation of monomers Figure 1(b) shows that the butyric acid was the predomi-
proceeded quickly, the hydrolysis of particulate polymers nant VFA species for all COD loading rates. The acetic acid
became the rate-limiting step. concentration decreased with the increase in COD loading
 Environmental Technology 1281

Table 2. Average operational results of the hydrolysis–acidogenesis process at different COD loading rates.

Run 1 Run 2 Run 3 Run 4 Run 5 Run 6

OLR (g (L d)−1 ) 2.3 4.1 6.3 8.4 10.7 13.1

pH 6.98 ± 0.23 6.69 ± 0.11 6.22 ± 0.41 4.98 ± 0.16 5.05 ± 0.34 5.01 ± 0.26
VFA (g L−1 ) 3.7 ± 0.2 5.2 ± 0.9 8.4 ± 0.7 10.3 ± 0.7 12.1 ± 0.3 11.6 ± 0.4
COD (g L−1 ) 8.4 ± 2.4 14.8 ± 0.9 22.5 ± 1.9 25.6 ± 4.4 33.8 ± 7.5 26.9 ± 8.5
Solubilization efficiency (%) 72.6 72.6 70.9 61.3 63.1 41.1
Acidification efficiency (%) 31.8 25.4 26.6 24.4 22.6 17.8
TS conversion efficiency (%) 75 75 68 65 63 60

40 3. It has been reported that lactic acid fermentation could

VFA(g.L–1) Lactic acid(g.L–1)

pH=5
32 no pH adjustment inhibit the growth of putrefactive and food poisoning bacte-
24 pH=7 ria responsible for the production of VFA if the pH was not
16 controlled.[22,23] When micro-organisms are concerned,
8
lactic acid is usually the precursor of propionic acid during
40
the anaerobic digestion,[33,34] whereas propionic acid was
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6
32
24 not favourable to the following methanogenesis.[35]
16 The single-stage anaerobic digestion of kitchen wastes
8 easily failed due to the fast decrease in pH at the ini-
0
0 tial period. It was generally considered that VFA caused
8
the decrease in pH. It can be speculated from this study
6 that lactic acid probably contributed to pH decrease at
pH

4 the initial period for the single-stage anaerobic digestion

2 process because the pH in the single-phase anaerobic pro-
0 2 4 6 8 10
Time(d)
Figure 2. Hydrolysis–acidogenesis of kitchen wastes in batch
experiments: variations of VFA and lactic acid at different pHs.
rate, while that of propionic acid indicated an increase in
Run 1–3 and stayed constant for Run 4–6.
3.1.3. VFA and lactic acid
To further determine the metabolic route of the hydrolysis–
acidogenesis products, the VFA and lactic acid variations
under pH values of 5 and 7 and the control were examined
in batch experiments. The results are shown in Figure 2,
in which it was found that the lactic acid and VFA were
generated rapidly at the initial period. The lactic acid con-
centration for neutral pH declined following a maximum
concentration, but for pH 5 and the control (without pH
adjustment), it gradually increased to the maximum value
and entered a plateau. However, VFA continued to increase
to the maximum concentration and kept constant at the
plateau under all three pH conditions.
The appearance of the lactic acid would have an
important influence on both hydrolysis–acidogenesis and
methanogenic process because the ionization constant of
lactic acid is lower than that of the acetic acid, propionic acid
and butyric acid.[32] The production of lactic acid could
decrease the pH to a relatively low value unless the pH
was controlled. During the batch test, it was proved that the
pH in the reactor without pH control would decrease below
12 14 16 cess was maintained at about 7, whereas neutral pH was
favourable to the production of lactic acid at the initial
period. It is favourable to reduce the production of lactic
acid or encourage the conversion of lactic acid to VFA in
the hydrolysis–acidogenesis process for the improvement
of two-phase anaerobic digestion of kitchen wastes.
3.1.4. Biogas productivity and constituents
It was observed from the variations of the biogas production
rate and the constituents at different feeding COD loading
rates (Figure 1(c)) that the production of methane (CH4 )
declined from 56% to 3% with an increase in the COD
loading rate. On the other hand, the production of CO2
increased from 30% to 77%, and there were no obvious
variations in the production of H2 and N2 . The generation
of CH4 was inversely proportional to the decrease in pH
(Figure 1(a)) in the hydrolysis–acidogenesis process due to
the inhibition of low pH on the activity of methanogens.
Due to the recirculation of methanogenic effluent into
the hydrolysis–acidogenesis reactor, it is unavoidable to
bring methanogenic microorganisms to the hydrolysis–
acidogenesis reactor. Good separation of acid and methane
phases was achieved by low and high methane yields
in the hydrolysis–acidogenesis reactor and methanogenic
reactor, respectively.[36] The increase in CO2 content
and the decrease in CH4 content in this study sug-
gest that methanogenesis was inhibited completely in the
hydrolysis–acidogenesis process in spite of the recycling
methanogenic effluent, and phase separation was achieved.
 1282 Z. Bo and H. Pin-jing

3.2. Methanogenic process deviations for all the measurements for all runs. The results
The soluble output COD at different OLRs in the showed that the COD conversion efficiency increased to
hydrolysis–acidogenesis reactor was fed into the methanogenic 70–80% with increases in the feeding COD concentrations.
reactor. The COD conversion (Figure 3(a)), variations in The biogas productivity continued to rise from Run 1 to 5,
biogas productivity (Figure 3(b)), pH, VFA and alkalinity and in Run 6 it decreased a little. In addition, the biogas
(Figure 3(c)) in the methanogenic reactor were monitored yield maintained at about 500 mL·(g COD)−1 in every run.
continuously. Table 3 summarizes the means and standard The effluent VFA concentration decreased gradually from
Run 1 to 5, and in Run 6, it slightly increased. The pH in
the methanogenic reactor remained close to 7.5, whereas
(a) 40 100 the alkalinity kept a decreasing tendency.
Influent COD Figure 4 shows the distribution of organic acids in the

COD bioconversion efficiency (%)

35
Effluent COD
80 methanogenic effluent corresponding to the OLRs used
30 COD removal rate(%)
in the hydrolysis–acidogenesis stage. In spite of the high
25 feeding concentration, lactic acid concentration was below
COD(g.L–1)

60
20 1 g·L−1 in the methanogenic effluent. In Run 1 and 2, the
40
propionic acid concentration almost accounted for 78%
15
of the total VFA due to the initial domestication of the
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10 methanogenic microorganism for the fermentation liquid

20
5
of kitchen wastes. In the subsequent runs, the propionic
acid accounting for over 60% of the VFA was still the
0 0 dominant constituent. The accumulation of propionic acid
0 20 40 60 80 100 120
in the anaerobic process will result in low efficiency of
Time (d)
the methanogenic phase due to the low acetogenic rate of
(b) 6
propionic acid.[37,38]
The COD conversion efficiency rose rapidly from
Biogas production rate (L.(L.d)–1)

Run 2 to 4. In addition, the biogas productivity almost

4
ascended linearly with increasing OLR in the hydrolysis–
acidogenesis stage in the methanogenic stage, as Table 3
indicated. This further suggested that the feeding COD
loading rate increase in the hydrolysis–acidogenesis stage
2 had no obvious influence on the performance of the sub-
sequent methanogenesis despite using the inoculum of
anaerobic activated sludge. In relation to the previous results
observed in the hydrolysis–acidogenesis reactor, over 80%
0 of the total soluble COD was from the fermentation prod-
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 ucts, whereas monomeric products rarely accumulated. This
Time (d) study revealed that hydrolysis was still the rate-limiting step
(c) 8 14 for the two-phase anaerobic digestion of kitchen wastes
Alkalinity though kitchen wastes in this study contained high VS
VFA 12
content, and considered to be easily biodegradable. The
Alkalinity and VFA (g.L–1)

6 pH slow hydrolysis rate might be due to the high organic

10
acid concentration in the fermentation liquid.[39] For the
8 overall enhancement of the two-phase anaerobic digestion
4
6 process of kitchen wastes, it is also necessary to regulate
pH

and control the dependent factors such as pH, tempera-

4 ture and particle size in order to accelerate the hydrolysis
2
process.[40]
2

0 0
0 20 40 60 80 100 120
3.3. Mass balance of the whole two-phase anaerobic
Time (d)
digestion process
Figure 3. Methanogenesis of hydrolysis–acidogenesis liquid of
kitchen wastes in semi-continuous experiments: (a) variations in The performance of the whole two-phase anaero-
influent COD, effluent COD and COD bioconversion efficiency; bic digestion process under a COD loading rate of
(b) variations in biogas productivity rate and (c) variations in pH, 10.7 g·(L d)−1 was assessed by the mass balance analy-
VFA and alkalinity. sis, as shown in Figure 5. About 83.1% of bioconversion
 Environmental Technology 1283

Table 3. Average operational results in the methanogenic stage.

Run 1 Run 2 Run 3 Run 4 Run 5 Run 6

OLR (g (L d)−1 ) in the hydrolysis– 2.3 4.1 6.3 8.4 10.7 13.1
acidogenenesis reactor
Input COD (g L−1 ) 8.4 ± 2.4 14.8 ± 0.9 22.5 ± 1.9 25.6 ± 4.4 33.8 ± 7.5 26.9 ± 8.5
OLR (g (L d)−1 ) in the methanogenic reactor 2.1 ± 0.6 3.7 ± 0.23 5.6 ± 0.48 6.4 ± 1.1 8.5 ± 1.9 6.7 ± 2.1
Output COD (g L−1 ) 5.9 ± 0.6 9.3 ± 1.1 8.6 ± 1.3 7.7 ± 1.6 7.2 ± 1.1 6.9 ± 2.7
Biogas productivity (L (L d)−1 ) 1.0 ± 0.3 1.8 ± 0.2 2.8 ± 0.7 3.3 ± 0.4 4.2 ± 0.4 3.6 ± 0.9
Biogas yield (mL (g COD)−1 ) 476.2 ± 32.3 486.5 ± 21.3 500.0 ± 25.8 515.6 ± 15.6 494.1 ± 20.2 537.7 ± 32.3
CH4 (%) 70 ± 1.5 72 ± 1 72 ± 2 75 ± 1.5 75 ± 2.3 72 ± 3
pH 7.5 ± 0.2 7.6 ± 0.1 7.6 ± 0.03 7.45 ± 0.1 7.7 ± 0.1 7.6 ± 0.01
VFA (g L−1 ) 3.3 ± 1.6 3.0 ± 0.5 2.3 ± 0.2 1.9 ± 0.2 1.4 ± 0.2 1.5 ± 0.4
Alkalinity (g L−1 ) 4.7 ± 1.01 4.3 ± 0.3 3.6 ± 0.2 3.8 ± 0.3 3.1 ± 0.1 2.2 ± 0.1

4 efficiency (calculated as [19.84(input)-2.29(discharge)-

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Lactic acid 1.06(output)]/19.84(input)) and the biogas yield of

Distribution of organic acids (g.L–1)

Propionic acid
Acetic acid 338.7 mL·(g COD)−1 (calculated as [6.72/19.84]) were
3 Butyric acid achieved. The TS conversion was 63% in the whole
two-phase anaerobic digestion process, which was mainly
reached in the hydrolysis–acidogenesis stage. Therefore,
2
the hydrolysis–acidogenesis stage needs to be improved if
the TS conversion is increased. The calculated methane
1
yield was 195 mL·(g input TS)−1 and 310.5 mL·(g con-
verted TS)−1 .
The operational performance of the two-phase anaero-
0 bic digestion in this study was comparable to those in the
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 reported literatures.[14,41] Bouallagui et al. [14] obtained
OLR(g.(L.d)–1) the maximum feeding OLR of 7.5 g COD·(L d)−1 when
Figure 4. Methanogenesis of hydrolysis–acidogenesis liquid of two-stage anaerobic sequence batch reactor (ASBR) was
kitchen wastes in semi-continuous experiments: distribution of used to treat kitchen wastes. The stable feeding OLR is
organic acids. lower than 8 gCOD·(L d)−1 [13,42,43] in most two-stage

Figure 5. Mass balance of two-phase anaerobic digestion for kitchen wastes at the OLR of 10.7 gCOD·(L d)−1 .
 1284 Z. Bo and H. Pin-jing
anaerobic digestion of kitchen wastes. In this study, it was
favourable to increase the feeding OLR by recirculating
methanogenic effluent into the hydrolysis reactor. At high
OLR of 10.7 g·(L d)−1 , the methane yield reached 315 mL·
(g converted TS)−1 . However, the solubilization efficiency
and acidogenesis efficiency were 63% and 22.6%, respec-
tively, at a high OLR (10.7 g·(L d)−1 ). Therefore, it can
be observed from the mass balance analysis that there is
a potential to improve the digestion performance if the
hydrolysis process is improved.
4. Conclusions
This study assessed the performance of two-stage anaerobic
digestion of kitchen wastes by mass balance. It can be con-
cluded that it is important to increase the feeding OLR for
two-stage anaerobic digestion process of kitchen wastes. At
Downloaded by [University of Canberra] at 07:00 23 October 2017
a COD loading rate of 10.7 g·(L d)−1 , a bioconversion effi-
ciency of about 83.1% and a biogas yield of 338.7 mL·(g
COD)−1 were achieved. The TS conversion was 63% in
the whole two-phase anaerobic digestion process. Based
on the results observed in the study, there is a potential to
improve the digestion performance if the hydrolysis process
is improved.
Acknowledgements
George Kirumba was instrumental in proof-reading the
manuscript. The authors of this manuscript express their heartfelt
gratitude to all that made the study a success.
Funding
The work was financially supported by Social Development Sci-
ence Foundation of Shanghai, China [12231202003]; National
Natural Science Foundation of China [No. 21177084]; Shanghai
Solid Waste Disposal Center, China.
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