The Water industry also sees anaerobic digestion playing an increasingly important role as it seeks to ensure that at least 20% of all its energy use comes from renewable sources by 2020.

The UK Government has also recognised the important contribution that anaerobic digestion can make to help it achieve a number of key national targets, for instance use of renewable energy, reducing CO 2 and other greenhouse gas emissions and reducing the amount of biodegradable municipal waste sent to landfill. Over the past decade there has been a surge of interest in anaerobic digestion, in particular from the waste industry for its application to the digestion of biodegradable organic wastes. This paper describes the theory of control through analysis of VFAs, outlines methods for their analysis, and describes how the results can be applied to digester control.Īnaerobic digestion, volatile fatty acids, organic wastes, biosolids, digester operation Many options are available but analysis of the composition of the volatile fatty acids (VFAs) in the digester provides a sophisticated approach that permits fine tuning of digester performance. But in view of the potential value of the methane generated and the opportunities to produce additional methane through a fully optimised digester, it is worth ensuring that strategies are in place to achieve this.

Operation of anaerobic digesters is not a simple process.

Digested organics revenue