PROBLEMS AND POSSIBILITIES WITH THE IMPLEMENTATION OF SIMULATION AND MODELING AT A BIOGAS PLANT

Advanced models are being developed for the anaerobicdigestion (AD) process. These models can be used to control and optimize industrial size biogas plant to reach their full potential. There are many models available for different types of implementations. However, many of the published models demands extensive chemical analysis that might not be practically and economically viable in industry. Sampling routines at six Swedish biogas plants was compiled for comparison with the demand of input in published modeling approaches. The gap between the models and practices in industry has to come together through model simplification and extended sampling routines. Chemical oxygen demand (COD) for example is not a commonly used analysis in Swedish biogas plants but which is regularly used to model the AD. Knowledge of the biochemical processes in AD built in to a model can help operators increase the biogas yield of the plant without jeopardizing the production. There is a lack of robust online measurement equipment today to be able to have reliable online models for operational support but near infrared spectroscopy (NIR) is a promising technology for online measuring of a series of different characteristics that could make modeling more interesting for the AD industry. The mixing has as of yet not been devoted much attention to when modeling the process.Paper ID: A10779