Abstract
Distilleries generate high COD (chemical oxygen demand) wastewater streams that are anaerobically digested to produce biogas with sub-optimal yields. In this work, for the first time, novel vortex-based hydrodynamic cavitation (HC) pre-treatment of these waste streams was investigated for significantly enhancing biogas yields. Molasses spent wash (120,000 ppm COD, India) and vinasse (27,000 ppm COD, Brazil) were pre-treated at varying number of passes (between 1 and 20) through the HC device at constant inflow, biochemical methanation potential (BMP) was measured and described using a first order model. Vortex-based HC pre-treatment led to 14% enhancement (2 passes) in BMP from spent wash (difficult to digest compared to vinasse) with a net energy gain of 1 GJ/ton COD. 10–22% increase in biogas yields from large-scale industrial spent wash digesters confirmed the laboratory findings. The work presented is useful and can be translated to recalcitrant feedstock for enhancing valorization using vortex-based HC pre-treatment.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 100480 |
| Journal | Bioresource Technology Reports |
| Volume | 11 |
| Early online date | 23 Jun 2020 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 01 Sept 2020 |
Keywords
- Biomethane
- Energy gain
- Hydrodynamic cavitation
- Spent wash
- Vinasse
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Bioengineering
- Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment
- Environmental Engineering
- Waste Management and Disposal
Access to Document
- Pre-treatment of distillery spent wash (vinasse) with vortex based cavitation and its influence on biogas generation
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