Biogas Production from Industrial Wastewater Using Anaerobic Digestion (AD) System

Megan Smart, Jackson Oglesby, Sarah Riley, Justin Penn, Haider Al-Rubaye, Ph.D., Joseph Smith, Ph.D.

Linda and Bipin Doshi department of Chemical Engineering/ Missouri University of Science and Technology

One of the biggest challenges facing the world today is the ever-growing demand for energy and how to meet this demand reliably and affordably. Traditional sources of energy are becoming scarce, being labeled as pollutants, or are socially unacceptable. Most industrial countries depend heavily on fossil fuels to operate their power plants. Because of this, we must research ways to generate renewable energy as an alternative energy source. In this project, biogas fuel has been produced via an anaerobic digestion process. Biogas is the name popularly used to denote the flammable mixture of gases. According to the experimental investigation, the biogas primarily consists of methane and carbon dioxide gases. In this project, an expanded granular sludge bed reactor runs at a mesophilic temperature range of 35-38C. Substrate is introduced to the system and microorganisms feed on the organic compounds found in the substrate. Different COD strengths and organic loading rates have been tested to determine optimal biogas production.