Effects of organic loading rate on anaerobic digestion of food waste at room temperature

In order to investigate the characteristics of anaerobic digestion for food waste at the different organic load rate(OLR), a pilot scale (40 L) experiment based on anaerobic digestions of food waste was carried out in a fed-batch single phase reactor with increasing organic loading rate at normal temperature(27℃). When the organic loading rate was controlled between 3.89 kg/(m3·d) and 6.49 kg/(m3·d), the gas production rate was between 2.5 L/(L·d) and 4.5 L/(L·d), methane yields ranged from 300.59 L/kgVS to 488.52 L/kgVS, where average methane contents were between 54.05% and 56.04%, the VS removal rate was 55.12%-89.58%. The experimental results showed that during the anaerobic digestion of food waste at normal temperature, high methane yields and stable methanogenic process with controlling OLR between 3.89 kg/(m3·d) and 6.49 kg/(m3·d) can be obtained.