BMP test to monitor seasonal efficiency of dry anaerobic digestion plant

The lack of specific monitoring tools is a hurdle for dry anaerobic digestion plant performance studies. The work aims to suggest a solid-state BMP protocol to monitor the full-scale dry anaerobic digestion process of the organic fraction of municipal solid waste. Physicochemical analyses, biomethane potential, and biodegradability data of different seasonal mixes fed in the reactor are provided. The data collected showed the effectiveness of the dry BMP test to analyse the process efficiency and to estimate the potential methane production of the biowaste. The process efficiency (expressed as % of methane production) was estimated combining the experimental data (BMP) and the plant parameters (organic loading rate and specific methane production) in four different seasons (Autumn, Winter, Spring, and Summer). The methane production (MP) of the plant ranged from 70 to 90 % of the potential biomethane production measured at lab scale. From the data collected, the seasonal differences were due to input biowaste (organic fraction of municipal solid waste and lignocellulosic materials used as bulking agent in dry AD) and their biodegradability, which results in different volatile solids removal in industrial reactor. The approach provided may be useful to better manage the process in a dry anaerobic digestion full-scale plant.