Performance Evaluation of a Biogas Reactor Processing Chicken Manure with High Solids Content

Abstract

The chicken sector in Turkey is amongst the most important economic activities. In parallel to the increase in the production of chicken and other side products, tremendous amount of waste material (manure) has also been generated throughout Turkey. This environmental problems associated with this sector is not only a bottleneck in Turkey but also in Europe. The current disposal method for chicken manure in Turkey is unfortunately direct release to receiving media including land and aquatic environment. Common use anaerobic digestion can be used for chicken manure which has high amount of ammonia and ammonium. A continuously stirred tank reactor (2 liters) was used as a mesophilic (37^oC) anaerobic reactor to examine the effect of high lodings of  dry matter and ammonia on the methane yield of the system. The retention time was kept at 30 days and the loading rate was  maintained in the range 2.2-2.5 kg VS m^-3 d^-1.  Biochemical methane potential (BMP) was also employed in order to evaluate the effect of varying dry matter loadings. This research was to determine the extent of anaerobic biodegradation of raw manure, methane yields and impact of ammonia on performance of the digestion.