Aqueous Ammonia soaking of digested manure fibers: Effect of ammonia concentration and treatment duration on methane production

The continuously increasing demand for renewable energy sources renders anaerobic digestion to one of the most promising technologies for renewable energy production. Due to the animal production intensification, manure is being used as the primary feedstock for most of the biogas plants. Thus, their economical profitable operation relies on increasing the methane yield from manure, and especially of its solid fraction which is not so easily degradable. In the present study, Aqueous Ammonia Soaking was successfully applied on digested fibers separated from the effluent of a manure-fed, full-scale anaerobic digester to enhance their methane productivity. Soaking in six different reagent concentrations in ammonia (5%, 10%, 15%, 20%, 25%, 32%) was applied for 3 days at 22°C. An overall methane yield increase from 85% to 110% was achieved compared to controls (digested manure fibers where AAS was not applied). The difference in reagent concentration at the range of 5-25% w/w in ammonia did not affect that much the overall methane yield resulting to an increase of 104-110% compared to the non AAS-treated fibers. Thus, an ammonia concentration as low as 5% is adequate for achieving the same increase in methane yield as the highest concentrations tested; it is anticipated that this will result to an even lower cost for recovery and recycling of ammonia in full-scale. Moreover, the effect of 1, 3, and 5 days AAS treatment on methane production from digested fibers was investigated with 5 and 25% w/w reagent concentrations in ammonia. It was shown that the optimal duration among the ones tested was the three days for both reagent concentrations.