Determination of biogas production potential from various supermarket wastes

Abstract

Up to date, alternative methods have been investigated to both decrease the environmental effects of wastes and also meet the growing energy demand considering the new technological developments. Then, biogas production through anaerobic digestion comes forward as an alternative method. Biogas and methane production potential of various substrates and waste sources through anaerobic digestion have been carried out in several laboratory and pilot-scale investigations. Through the continued developments of these investigations and applications, using supermarket wastes in biogas plants occurs as a new method to remove wastes in an environmentally way. The research focused mainly on to investigate the biogas production potential of supermarket wastes. In the concept of research, waste characterizations and suitable total solid (TS, %) ratios of substrates were primarily determined. The objective of this study was to observe the biogas production potentials of every supermarket waste type in the same operation conditions through anaerobic digestion. With this goal, simulated batch-reactors were operated in the laboratory at a constant temperature of 350C. Reactors were filled with shredded and homogenized waste mixtures which were collected from waste storage area of one of the supermarket chain. Substrates were prepared considering TS values which were fixed for every reactor. Also, sludge addition was performed in order to accelerate microbial activity before loading to the reactors. Consequently, methane-rich biogas production was observed through anaerobic digestion of supermarket wastes. The better performance in gas production and methane concentration was recorded for mixed wastes due to the better nutritional composition. The feasibility study that was calculated in the light of methane and gas production results showed that installing biogas plant could be feasible in an economically manner for supermarkets.