Thermal post-treatment of digestate in order to increase biogas production with simultaneous pasteurization

Biogas production by anaerobic digestion (AD) of organic wastes is important for the transition to fossil free fuelsin both the transport sector, industries and shipping. The aim of this study was to target the residual organicmatter in the outgoing residue from the AD process, so called digestate, with different thermal treatmentmethods in order to improve digestate degradability and biogas potential upon post-digestion. The thermaltreatment was performed at 55 ◦C in 24 h, 70 ◦C in 1 h and by thermal hydrolysis process (THP; 165 ◦C, 8 bar in0.33 h), and were carefully selected to offer a simultaneous possibility for pasteurization of the digestate accordingto the regulations in Sweden. Digestates from ten full-scale biogas plants were collected, with differentsubstrate profiles including wastewater treatment plant (WWTP), food waste digestion, agriculture digestion andmanure digestion. The results showed that all thermal treatment methods caused increased dissolved organiccarbon concentration (DOC). Four of the thermal treated digestates with the highest increase in DOC weresubsequently tested for the bio-methane potential. Thermal treatments at 70 ◦C and THP, respectively, resulted inthe highest increase in bio-methane potentials, with an increase of 15–39% for one WWTP, 38 – 40% fordigestate from an agriculture digestion plant and 20 – 22% for digestate from a co-digestion plant treating foodwaste. Interestingly, the bio-methane potential from digestate treated with the energy-intense THP method, didnot show any significant difference compared to thermal treatment at 70 ◦C for 1 h. The outcomes of this studysuggest that placing a pasteurization unit between a main digester and a post digester, when applying two-stepdigestion allows for a combined pasteurization and increased biogas production.Funding: Swedish Energy AgencySwedish Energy AgencyMaterials & Energy Research Center (MERC) [35624-2]; Tekniska verken i Linkoping AB