[Digestion] Available process models to understand the effect of operating parameters on anaerobic digestion

[Hoysall Chanakya]

Dear Sreenivas,
For your modeling try ADM-1 and ADM-2 (anaerobic digestion model, ADM)
which will handle the post hydrolysis component of anaerobic digestion.

The hydrolysis stage is however a lot more difficult and not so straight
forward.  If you model this separately (based on past literature), you
could put in a feed back loop that will drive the reaction forward as well
as address feed back inhibition by accumulating VF acids.  That should
take care.

Please remember you may not get a good process model for the entire AD
process because only recently has been agricultural lignocellulosics
entered the (market) basket of possible AD feedstocks.  Although a lot
many in the "Digestion Lists" have been long time practitioners, much to
our dismay it did not become a popular option till very recently.

Secondly it is quite possible that corn (stalk) grown in UK, Europe,
Australia and Asia will have differing "digestibilities" (rate and extent)
because the understanding of hydrolysis (unlike that described very often
in the past) goes beyond a mere accounting for lignin and cellulose(s)
content.  This earlier approach considered that lignin was a uniformly
placed barrier in the path of hydrolytic enzymes (and bacteria) and thus
every for 1% of lignin concentration detected, it prevented 2%
digestibility (circa 1980-90s).  Today we seem to believe that lignin
sub-units in Graminae (guaiacyl sub-units) are somewhat more degradable
than their hard-wood cousins - although this may not lead to
stoichiometrically accountable biogas production.

In short "ENTER AT YOUR OWN RISK.  THE ALLURE OF THE 'METHANOGENIC
MERMAIDS' ARE QUITE ATTRACTIVE AND DIFFICULT TO DISREGARD"

Try not to use Matlab and its peripherals on conventional PCs - the
computing power will generally be inadequate.  Instead you could create
your own on Linux platforms while removing many of the lesser required
reactions to start with.

Best wishes
Chanakya

-- 
Center for Sustainable Technologies
Assoc. Faculty. Center for Contemporary Studies
Center for Infrastructure, Sustainable Transport and  Urban Planning
(CiSTUP),
Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore


> Dear members,
>
> I am working on "Understanding the influence of various operating
> parameters (temperature, pH, etc.) on the quantity and quality of biogas
> from Anaerobic Digestion".
>
> Could anyone let me know whether there are any open source process
> simulation models (may be Aspen based, or some other platforms also would
> be helpful) available for this study?
>
> Thanks in advance for sparing your valuable time.
>
> --
> Thanks and Regards,
> ==========================================================
> CH Sreenivas
> Research Scholar, IDP in Climate Studies, IIT Bombay
> (M) - 07738853504, 09177667662
> (O) - 022 - 2576 7877 / 4742
> (R) - 09949344270,09963328094
> mail ID: cnu.biotech at gmail.com, ch.sreenivas at iitb.ac.in
> Website: https://sites.google.com/site/chigullapallisreenivasgupta/
> ==========================================================
>
> "The only source of knowledge is experience" - Albert Einstein
>
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>



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