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Biomass & Bioenergy, Vol.77, 1-8, 2015
Psychrophilic dry anaerobic digestion of cow feces and wheat straw: Feasibility studies
This paper reports a novel psychrophilic dry anaerobic digestion (PDAD) of cow feces (feces) and wheat straw (WS). Three feeding strategies (WS, feces, and feces plus WS) were assessed in pseudo sequential batch reactors (PSBR) during three successive cycles of around 21 days hydraulic retention time (HRT). Average specific methane yields on VS fed (L kg(-1)) of 129 +/- 17 (WS only), 164 +/- 23 (feces only (10-11% TS)) and 152 +/- 6 (a mixture of feces plus WS (16% TS)) were obtained during the last three successive cycles. The average methane production rates on VS fed were 3.5 +/- 1.5 and 3.6 +/- 1.3 and 4.1 +/- 0.4 L kg(-1) d(-1) for the three feeding strategies, respectively. The successive cycles revealed that the psychrophilic anaerobic digestion of high-solid content of cow feces and wheat straw is a reproducible process, practically feasible, and as efficient as mesophilic dry anaerobic digestion given that a well-adapted inoculum is developed and maintained. Crown Copyright (C) 2015 Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.